The human body hosts enormous range of microorganisms, some are beneficial, some are harmful in nature. Proper diagnosis of the disease requires extensive analysis of interactions occurring inside the human body. Metagenomics is one such approach that help in building a better health care system.

The disease occurrence, resistance, and recovery are strongly dependent on the microbial community residing human body.Despite the occurrence of disease, numerous physiological and biochemical processes need the assistance of microorganisms. For instance, digestion is incomplete without the activity of gut-friendly microbes.So, analyzing them can provide sufficient information about the overall human genome.Go through this article to know more about metagenomics and its importance in the modern healthcare system.

What is metagenomics?

This is the study of the whole microorganism community extracted mostly from environmental samples. However, samples from the human body can also be collected. As analysis of microorganisms provides a view about health status, various analysis of microbes is conducted for this purpose.In earlier times, experts used to study the disease on a very specific human body, but every human is different from others, and interaction with the microorganism is also different. Any kind of human disease is linked to the activity of microorganisms. Although it is easy to say, analyzing and understanding the interaction is extremely tough.

Why metagenomics is important?

If you consider the human body as a whole system, it is composed of internal and external interaction. The internal system includes various organs along with the microbes. The external environment comprises lifestyle, location, season, and so on. There must be a dynamic equilibrium between these two systems to sustenance. If there is any imbalance from any side, it results in an abnormality in the overall interaction process. This tells a lot about the health status of that human being. For example, if you are facing some issues in digestion, there might be some issues in your food habit or life style or the activity of organs, or even microbial functioning. After proper analysis, the treatment process becomes easy, and even non-diagnosable diseases can be treated. Thus, understanding the broad picture is important if you wish to get permanent relief from disease.

How metagenomics study is conducted?

The first and critical step of metagenomics lies in the collection of samples. At first your need to be sure about the purpose of the study. Accordingly you need to plan the strategy. The next step is the extraction of DNA along with proper sequencing to generate a raw dataset. Now, they are sent for annotation and metaanalysis. The final step is to store the datset for future reference.

Metagenomics and modern healthcare system:

Metagenomics study provides systematic as well as unbiased characterization of microorganisms that ultimately help in developing proper therapeutic strategies. For example, consider the recent pandemic situation and the vaccine discovery process. It would have been incomplete unless metagenomics enabled the visualization of a broad picture of the functioning of the virus inside the human body.

Believe it or not, metagenomics is the future of the health care system globally.