Microbiome is a compound word of microbiota and genome, which refers microorganisms that live or coexist in all environments, including the human body, animals, plants, the sea, and soil, and a community of microorganisms that includes the entire genetic information of those microorganisms. Microorganism is a term that commonly refers to invisible organisms such as germs, viruses, bacteria, and fungi. There are always at least 200 species of microorganisms in the human body and skin. In particular, in the case of skin with distribution of many microorganisms, there are as many as 10 billion microbial communities per 1 cm². If you collect all the microorganisms on the surface of the skin, it is the size of a pea, and if you add up all the microorganisms in the body, it is the amount of 300mL information, so you can estimate how many microorganisms exist in our body. Not only that, but the presence of microorganisms around us is so large that microorganisms make up about two-thirds of all living things on Earth in our bodies.
Microbiome Analysis is a service that analyzes microbial flora based on NGS based on the characteristics of the 16S-rRNA genetic sequence of microorganisms. 16S-rRNA, short for 16S ribosomal RNA, is an RNA that makes up the 30S subunit of prokaryotic ribosomes. The gene encoding 16S-rRNA is called the 16S rRNA gene, and even within a single bacterial genome, multiple 16S rRNA genes exist and are often not completely identical. Among prokaryotic genes, it is the most conserved and has the least sequence differences even between taxonomically distant organisms. By comparing the sequences of 16S-rRNA, prokaryotes can be classified and identified. In prokaryotes, if there is less than 97% homology, they are classified as different species. When an unknown prokaryote is isolated and secured, it is easy to identify which species it belongs to by amplifying the 16S rRNA of the isolated strain by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to confirm its nucleotide sequence and comparing it with the existing sequences present in the database. Recently, in the analysis of bacterial communities existing in the environment, rather than growing bacteria directly, DNA is extracted from environmental samples, 16S rRNA is amplified by PCR, and 16S rRNA gene mixtures derived from various bacteria are analyzed using Next Generation Sequencing(NGS), ultra-high speed analysis is recognized as the correct method.
3BIGS has an NGS-based microbiome analysis platform and is equipped with an optimal pipeline that can analyze the above metagenomic data. It is possible to analyze and statistically analyze raw data, and various graphs can be derived through visualization of the distribution of microorganisms in the data.
When performing NGS-based microbiome analysis, you can easily check the analysis results in HTML file format. When you run the report file, you can access detailed analysis results according to categories such as Taxonomy, Diversity, and Functional, etc. through the report menu on the left, and you can check the analysis result file and visualization data right inside the page.
