H Jeffery et al., 2012, Nature Reviews Microbiology
The neat division of gut microbiomes into distinct enterotypes may be an oversimplification — the data more likely reflects a continuous gradient running from Bacteroides-dominated to Prevotella-dominated communities, with no clean boundaries in between.
For the concept-level interpretation, see Foundations: Enterotypes.
- Limitation
- This paper questions the discreteness of enterotypes but does not itself provide new experimental data — it is a conceptual reappraisal of existing studies, and the authors acknowledge that linking microbiome composition patterns to clinical outcomes remains a worthwhile and open goal, regardless of whether those patterns are gradients or clusters.
- Tags
- gut-microbiome, enterotypes, bacteroides, prevotella, ruminococcus, microbiome-gradients, 16s-rrna, diet, ageing, co-abundance-groups