Enterotypes in the landscape of gut microbial community composition

Paul I. Costea, Falk Hildebrand, Arumugam Manimozhiyan, Fredrik Bäckhed, Martin J. Blaser, Frederic D. Bushman, Willem M. De Vos, S. Dusko Ehrlich, Claire M. Fraser, Masahira Hattori, Curtis Huttenhower, Ian B. Jeffery, Dan Knights, James D. Lewis, Ruth E. Ley, Howard Ochman, Paul W. O'Toole, Christopher Quince, David A. Relman, Fergus ShanahanShinichi Sunagawa, Jun Wang, George M. Weinstock, Gary D. Wu, Georg Zeller, Liping Zhao, Jeroen Raes, Rob Knight, Peer Bork

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

598 Scopus citations

Abstract

Population stratification is a useful approach for a better understanding of complex biological problems in human health and wellbeing. The proposal that such stratification applies to the human gut microbiome, in the form of distinct community composition types termed enterotypes, has been met with both excitement and controversy. In view of accumulated data and re-analyses since the original work, we revisit the concept of enterotypes, discuss different methods of dividing up the landscape of possible microbiome configurations, and put these concepts into functional, ecological and medical contexts. As enterotypes are of use in describing the gut microbial community landscape and may become relevant in clinical practice, we aim to reconcile differing views and encourage a balanced application of the concept.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)8-16
Number of pages9
JournalNature Microbiology
Volume3
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2017

Bibliographical note

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© 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.

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