Microbiome is the collection of microorganisms and conditions in a particular environment. It can be linked to phenomenon such as human health and environmental sustainability. Therefore, understanding of microbiome can lead to discovery of microbial applications to the benefit of humans and the future of the planet.

    Microbiome analysis platform at Thailand Bioresource Research Centre (TBRC) employs state-of-the-art bioinformatic tools to investigate bacterial and fungi community profiling in metabarcoding or meta-’omics studies. The multi-level complexities of microbial communities are systematically analysed and visualised.

• “How many and how diverse microbes are there?”.

• “How do they functionally perform in the community?”

• “What are their relationships within the community and to their hosts?”

• “How do external factors, e.g. habitat, ambient temperature, seasonal variation, etc., affect the microbial communities?”

Taxonomic diversity

The taxonomic diversity of microbiomes is assessed using alpha diversity indices and beta diversity.

Alpha diversity: assess and compare the local diversity of microbes between sample groups

Beta diversity PcoA analysis: investigate the overall diversity in the region

Observing the microbial relationship within the community

The relationships of microbes in the community are vastly complex. The microbe-microbe and microbe-host interactions can be implied based on their co-occurrence patterns.

Co-occurrence network and cluster analysis

Association rules analysis

Assessing core and differential taxa

Similarities and differences can be observed among microbial communities. The core taxa consist of microbial taxonomic groups that are prevalent and conserved in the region or sample group. While the differential taxa are uniquely present or abundant in specific samples or habitats.

Species-set enrichment analysis identifies differential species based on abundance. 

The balance composition shift of microbial community structure can be detected by GNEISS analysis.

Analysing the functional diversity in microbiomes

 The microbial activities are a major metabolic driver in the ecosystems. Many microbial species synergistically and    antagonistically interact in the biochemical pathways. The functional diversity of microbiome can be analysed and visualised by the relative abundance of microbial species in each functional niche.

The proportion of microbial species in the biochemical pathways are differed across different habitat types.