Dissecting the predictors of microbiome variability and their role in inflammatory bowel diseases – MICMAT

There has been considerable effort the past few years to study the human microbiota and its link to human health. These studies revealed numerous important univariate features associated with changes in the microbiomes. They also called into question the current strategy focusing on associations with single microbial taxonomic units (OTU), and highlighted the importance of studying overall microbiome variability to move the field forward. However, methods to achieve that goal are lacking. The objective of this proposal is to develop an innovative approach for the identification of genetic, clinical and environmental factors associated with microbiome variability, and to apply this approach for the analysis of three highly complementary gut microbiome cohorts including both healthy individuals and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) cases. Moreover, the data generated in one of these cohort will constitute the largest human study with both 16S sequencing and whole-genome host genotypes in IBD cases. Altogether, our study will produce a unique characterization of factors associated with microbiome variability and their potential links to human diseases, and IBD in particular.