Russian Metagenomic Project is an initiative lead by a consortium of Russian scientific and medical institutes targeting study of human gut microbiome of Russian population. During Phase I of project, fecal metagenomic samples of 132 subjects were sequenced on ABI SOLiD sequencer and analyzed bioinfor-matically.The composition was derived by assessment of taxonomic and functional relative abundance, allowing linking with various medical and ethno-geographical factors. Taxonomic profiling revealed clustering of types of microbiota into clusters similar to previously described enterotypes, although the third (mixed-type) enterotype seems to demonstrate more complex sub-structure. The differences were simultaneously examined using abundance of prevalent microbial genes grouped into functional categories. Within the frame of analysis, Russian samples were compared with metagenomic data sets from MetaHIT and HMP projects. For selected samples, taxonomic results of whole-genome approach was compared to 16S rRNA sequencing on 454 sequencer.

The results were presented at International Human Microbiome Congress (IHMC) 2012, Paris, France, March 18-21.

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