Mock Community Analysis

Definitions

Mock community: A defined mixture of microbial cells and/or viruses or nucleic acid molecules created in vitro to simulate the composition of a microbiome sample or the nucleic acid isolated therefrom.

Microbiome: The microbes (bacteria, archaea, fungi, protists, and viruses) that inhabit a specific environment or host, such as all the microbes that live in and on the human body.

Metagenome: The complete DNA (genomic) content of a microbiome sample. The term “metagenome” was first used by Handelsman et al. to describe the “collective genomes of soil microflora” (Handelsman et al. 1998).

Introduction

Although a few studies have reported creation of mock communities for environmental microbial systems, this review will be restricted to mock communities that have been developed for studies of the human microbiome.

Microbial Mock Communities

For the human sampling aspect of the Human Microbiome Project (HMP), the clinical centers at Baylor College of Medicine and the Washington...