microbiome
/mʌɪkrə(ʊ)ˈbʌɪəʊm
/noun
1The microorganisms in a particular environment (including the body or a part of the body): we depend on a vast army of microbes to stay alive: a microbiome that protects us against germs, breaks down food to release energy, and produces vitamins...
- In our guts lives something called a 'microbiome', which is made up of approximately 100 trillion bacteria collectively containing maybe a hundred times as much genetic information as their host.
- Scientists have long known that the human body coexists with trillions of individual germs, what they call the microbiome.
- Our 'microbiomes' help us digest food and fight disease, all the while evolving fast and flexibly in service of their own interests.
1.1The combined genetic material of the microorganisms in a particular environment: understanding the microbiome—human, animal, and environmental—is as important as the human genome...
- It is important to think of our bodies as a summation of the metabolic capabilities provided by our own genome and the microbiome.
- He explains the roles of the genomes of trillions of microbes in and on our bodies (the microbiome).
- The groundwork for analysing the human microbiome—sequencing the collective genome of all our resident microorganisms—is now done.
Origin
1950s: from micro- and biome.