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bioRxiv · 10.1101/310649

Quantification of human gut microbiota variability using replicate sampling and spike-in sequencing

Ji, B. W.·Sheth, R. U.·Dixit, P. D.·Wang, H. H.·Vitkup, D.
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Abstract

Metagenomic sequencing has enabled detailed investigation of diverse microbial communities, but understanding their spatiotemporal dynamics remains an important challenge. Here we present DIVERS, a widely applicable method based on replicate sampling and spike-in sequencing that quantifies the contributions of temporal dynamics, spatial sampling variability and technical noise to the variances and covariances of absolute bacterial abundances. Using high resolution time series profiling, we apply DIVERS to the human gut microbiome. Our method reveals complex spatiotemporal dynamics of individual gut bacteria and unmasks key features of their behavior hidden from previous analyses.

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Ji, B. W., Sheth, R. U., Dixit, P. D., Wang, H. H., Vitkup, D.. 2018-05-02. Quantification of human gut microbiota variability using replicate sampling and spike-in sequencing. https://doi.org/10.1101/310649

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