Gut microbiota in Northern Thai populations

The human gastrointestinal tract represents a collection of prokaryotic and eukaryotic microorganisms. It has been reported that gut microbiota plays a role in health and disease. Imbalance of gut microbial communities has been implicated in several non-communicable diseases including inflammatory gastrointestinal diseases, Type 2 diabetes, and obesity. However, a role of gut microbiota in adult Southeast Asians remains largely unexplored. Herein, we present gut microbiota data obtained from Thai volunteers living in Chiang Rai Province, Thailand. We use a combination of quantitative PCR, Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to investigate microbial communities, individual microbial taxa, and metabolites of NCDs volunteers. We consider prokaryotic taxa and their relationships with body mass index/waist to hip ratio and diet. We find that specific taxa of lower taxonomic levels are associated with the lean and overweight, but not the obese phenotype. We also find that microbial prokaryotic communities differ significantly amongst the different study groups.