A Goldilocks Principle for the Gut Microbiome: Taxonomic Resolution Matters for Microbiome-Based Classification of Colorectal Cancer
Courtney R. Armour, Begüm D. Topçuoğlu, Andrea Garretto, Patrick D. Schloss
Abstract
Despite being highly preventable, colorectal cancer remains a leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States. Low-cost, noninvasive detection methods could greatly improve our ability to identify and treat early stages of disease. The microbiome has shown promise as a resource for detection of colorectal cancer. Research on the gut microbiome tends to focus on improving our ability to profile species and strain level taxonomic resolution. However, we found that finer resolution impedes the ability to predict colorectal cancer based on the gut microbiome. These results highlight the need for consideration of the appropriate taxonomic resolution for microbiome analyses and that finer resolution is not always more informative.