报告时间：2018年10月19日 15:30-16:30
报告地点：明德主楼1016会议室
报告主题：Deciphering Functional Redundancy in the Human Microbiome
报告摘要：The taxonomic composition of the human microbiome varies tremendously across individuals, while its gene composition or functional capacity is highly conserved across individuals. Such a strikingly conserved functional capacity implies an ecological property known as functional redundancy. Here, we decipher the functional redundancy in the human microbiome by depicting its genomic content network --- a bipartite graph that links microbes to the genes in their genomes. We find that this network exhibits several topological features, which favor high functional redundancy. Furthermore, we find that the human gut microbiota displays a unique assembly pattern --- a functional core-periphery structure, which enables it to reach a higher functional redundancy than other body sites. This unique assembly pattern and the associated high functional redundancy of the gut microbiota are gradually established during the first year of life in healthy infants. Our framework, based on the genomic content network of the human microbiome, paves the way for a mechanistic understanding of species-function relationships, which is critical for developing functional-based diagnostics and therapeutics.
个人简介：Liang Tian is a research fellow in the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He is a statistical physicist by training, with expertise in analytical calculation, modeling and data analysis. His research encompasses a broad range of topics from statistical physics to system biology. Currently, he is working on dynamics and functions of the human microbiome. His works have been published in Nature Communications, Physical Review E, Europhysics letter, and so on.