Sequences from a US government-funded program to paint a genomic
picture of the human gut's complex ecosystem are going public
for the first time since the effort started in 2008. Researchers
sequenced thousands of samples taken from 300 healthy volunteers
as part of the Human Microbiome Project, which is funded by the
National Institutes of Health. The genomic information --
results from shotgun sequencing of 690 metagenomes from 300
individuals and targeted 16S sequencing of 5034 microbiomes --
appeared online last week. You can access the whole metagenome
data here and the 16S reads here. Viruses that attack bacteria
may be an important component of our gut microbiota.