Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2019 Apr;20(4):195-206.
doi: 10.1038/s41576-018-0085-z.

A great-ape view of the gut microbiome

Alex H Nishida  1 , Howard Ochman  2
Affiliations
Review

A great-ape view of the gut microbiome

Alex H Nishida et al. Nat Rev Genet. 2019 Apr.

Abstract

Humans assemble a specialized microbiome from a world teeming with diverse microorganisms. Comparison to the microbiomes of great apes provides a dimension that is indispensable to understanding how these microbial communities form, function and change. This evolutionary perspective exposes not only how human gut microbiomes have been shaped by our great-ape heritage but also the features that make humans unique, as exemplified by an expansive loss of bacterial and archaeal diversity and the identification of microbial lineages that have co-diversified with their hosts.

PubMed Disclaimer

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources