Next Generation Sequencing of Microbiomes New Solutions for Nucleic Acid Extraction and PCR Amplification

The Human Microbiome Project and other approaches are dedicated to the exploration of the vast complexity of microbial communities living in association with the human body, including the skin, oral cavity, upper respiratory tract, stomach, intestine, and genitourinary tract. The aim of these projects is to understand host-microbe interactions with regard to human health and disease. Next Generation Sequencing is a powerful analytical tool capable of resolving the microbiota in respect to community structure, dynamics, and activity, i.e., gene expression. This overview discusses pre-analytical problems and solutions contributed by new tools.