Human genomics and microbiomics: the post-genomic scenario

摘要

The human genome has been sequenced and the task was named as the ‘human genome project’. The ultimategoal of the human genome project was to understand the human physiology and health, and to fight againstinfectious and non-infectious diseases. Variations in the human genome sequence, such as single nucleotidepolymorphisms (SNPs) and haplotypes, associated with various diseases have been identified through ‘theHapMap project’. Recently, ‘the 1000 genomes project’ has been initiated to catalogue the chromosomalstructural variations, which might be missed by the SNP approaches. In addition, the role of endogenous microorganisms, which live in and on humans and their genomes in human health has gained much attention inrecent years. Hence ‘the international human microbiome project’ has been recently launched, which mayreveal the role of endogenous microorganisms in maintaining the human health and susceptibility to diseases.