Journal List > Allergy Asthma Respir Dis > v.4(5) > 1059202

Choi, Cho, and Yi: Human microbiome studies in Korea

Abstract

During the second half of the 2000s, the significant impact of human microbiome on human diseases and health conditions was found. Since the Human Microbiome Project, many microbiome studies have been reported in domestic and international references. Gastrointestinal tract microbiome has been most investigated so far, and the association with illness has been demonstrated in many diseases. Recently, the range of study was extended to multiple human organs, such as the respiratory tract, skin, and urogenital tract. Given the scale and speed of research and development in recent years, the role of microbiome in many diseases would be established before long. In this review, we aimed to summarize the current status of microbiome studies in Korea and foreign countries with an emphasis on respiratory tract microbiome. The main concept and analytical methods for microbiome research, associations of microbiome and diseases, and research projects on Korean microbiome are reviewed.

Figures and Tables

Fig. 1

Number of the publications by National Institutes of Health (NIH) Human Microbiome Project (HMP), USA. Distribution of the publications depending on calendar year (A), and depending on associated organs or diseases (B). Data from the NIH HMP website (http://hmpdacc.org).

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Fig. 2

Count of microbiome research funding and publications in Korea.

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Table 1

Major international microbiome projects

aard-4-311-i001
Country Project title Duration Objective
International International Human Microbiome Consortium (IHMC) 2010– Set principles and policies to study microbiome. Mediate projects to generate a comprehensive data resource.
EU Metagenomics of the Human Intestinal Tract (MetaHIT) 2008–2011 Construct large catalog of intestinal microbiome and genes of IBD and obesity.
International Human Microbiome Standards (IHMS) 2011–2015 Establish a standard protocol for human microbiome studies.
USA NIH Human Microbiome Project (HMP) 2008–2015 Generate resources of the human microbiome. Diagnosis and treatment through a correlation between diseases and microbiome.
Home Microbiome Project 2012– Analyze bacterial community in living space.
Data Analysis and Coordination Center (DACC) 2008–2013 Assist in standard of data pipeline.
Hospital Microbiome Project 2012–2014 Analyze bacterial community in hospital, and find correlation between the bacteria and patient.
Microbiome Quality Control Project (MBQC) 2013– Establish analytic pipeline of human fecal microbiome.
American Gut Project 2013– Study of bacterial diversity of the public and construct data resource.
Japan Japanese Consortium for Human Microbiome (JCHM) 2014– Study of Japanese specific intestinal microbiome and disease biomarker.
Canada Canadian Microbiome Initiative (CMI) 2009– Support seven research teams to conduct a prospective study of diseases by modeling and mapping microbial diversity.
France MicroObes 2008–2010 Research on obesity and human intestinal microbiome.
MetaGenoPolis (MGP) 2012–2019 Find the correlation of non-infectious diseases and intestinal microbiome.
Korea Korean Microbiome Diversity Using Korean Twin Cohort Project 2010–2015 Study on human diseases related microbiome using twin cohort and characterize Korean specific microbiome.
Australia The Australian Jumpstart Human Microbiome Project 2009 Analyze metagenome of intestinal microbes and Australian specific microbiome.

Notes

This research was supported by a fund (code: 2015ER660300) by Research of Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Supplementary Material

Supplementary Table 1

Publications of Korean microbiome research
TOOLS
ORCID iDs

Hana Yi
https://orcid.org/http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4910-122X

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