Emerging tools and best practices for studying gut microbial community metabolism

Abstract

The human gut microbiome vastly extends the set of metabolic reactions catalysed by our own cells, with far-reaching consequences for host health and disease. However, our knowledge of gut microbial metabolism relies on a handful of model organisms, limiting our ability to interpret and predict the metabolism of complex microbial communities. In this Perspective, we discuss emerging tools for analysing and modelling the metabolism of gut microorganisms and for linking microorganisms, pathways and metabolites at the ecosystem level, highlighting promising best practices for researchers. Continued progress in this area will also require infrastructure development to facilitate cross-disciplinary synthesis of scientific findings. Collectively, these efforts can enable a broader and deeper understanding of the workings of the gut ecosystem and open new possibilities for microbiome manipulation and therapy. In this Perspective, Noecker and Turnbaugh provide a detailed guide for studying microbial community metabolism and discuss the best practices in the field.