Characterization and Demonstration of Mock Communities as Control Reagents for Accurate Human Microbiome Community Measurements
Dieter M. Tourlousse, Koji Narita, Takamasa Miura, Akiko Ohashi, Masami Matsuda, Yoshifumi Ohyama, Mamiko Shimamura, Masataka Furukawa, Ken Kasahara, Keishi Kameyama, Sakae Saito, Maki Goto, Ritsuko Shimizu, Riko Mishima, Jiro Nakayama, Koji Hosomi, Jun Kunisawa, Jun Terauchi, Yuji Sekiguchi, Hiroko Kawasaki
Abstract
Application of high-throughput DNA sequencing has greatly accelerated human microbiome research and its translation into new therapeutic and diagnostic capabilities. Microbiome community analyses results can, however, vary considerably across studies or laboratories, and establishment of measurement standards to improve accuracy and reproducibility has become a priority. The here-developed mock communities, which are available from the NITE Biological Resource Center (NBRC) at the National Institute of Technology and Evaluation (NITE, Japan), provide well-characterized control reagents that allow users to judge the accuracy of their measurement results. Widespread and consistent adoption of the mock communities will improve reproducibility and comparability of microbiome community analyses, thereby supporting and accelerating human microbiome research and development.