Predictive metabolomic profiling of microbial communities using amplicon or metagenomic sequences

TitlePredictive metabolomic profiling of microbial communities using amplicon or metagenomic sequences
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2019
AuthorsMallick H, Franzosa EA, Mclver LJ, Banerjee S, Sirota-Madi A, Kostic AD, Clish CB, Vlamakis H, Xavier RJ, Huttenhower C
JournalNat Commun
Volume10
Issue1
Pagination3136
Date Published2019 Jul 17
ISSN2041-1723
KeywordsAlgorithms, Colitis, Ulcerative, Crohn Disease, Gastrointestinal Microbiome, Humans, Metabolomics, Metagenomics, Microbiota, Models, Genetic
Abstract

Microbial community metabolomics, particularly in the human gut, are beginning to provide a new route to identify functions and ecology disrupted in disease. However, these data can be costly and difficult to obtain at scale, while amplicon or shotgun metagenomic sequencing data are readily available for populations of many thousands. Here, we describe a computational approach to predict potentially unobserved metabolites in new microbial communities, given a model trained on paired metabolomes and metagenomes from the environment of interest. Focusing on two independent human gut microbiome datasets, we demonstrate that our framework successfully recovers community metabolic trends for more than 50% of associated metabolites. Similar accuracy is maintained using amplicon profiles of coral-associated, murine gut, and human vaginal microbiomes. We also provide an expected performance score to guide application of the model in new samples. Our results thus demonstrate that this 'predictive metabolomic' approach can aid in experimental design and provide useful insights into the thousands of community profiles for which only metagenomes are currently available.

DOI10.1038/s41467-019-10927-1
Alternate JournalNat Commun
PubMed ID31316056
PubMed Central IDPMC6637180
Grant ListP30 DK036836 / DK / NIDDK NIH HHS / United States
P30 DK040561 / DK / NIDDK NIH HHS / United States
P30 DK043351 / DK / NIDDK NIH HHS / United States