Number of intestinal microbe species

Range 400 - 500 microbial species
Organism Human Homo sapiens
Reference Breitbart M et al., Metagenomic analyses of an uncultured viral community from human feces. J Bacteriol. 2003 Oct185(20):6220-3 DOI: 10.1128/jb.185.20.6220-6223.2003 p.6220 left column top paragraphPubMed ID14526037
Primary Source Table - link
Comments p.6220 left column top paragraph: "The human gut is colonized by an abundant, active, and diverse microbiota. This microbiota has been studied extensively using culture-based assays and, more recently, by a variety of molecular methods including fluorescent in situ hybridization, terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism, membrane assays, microarrays, and direct sequencing of 16S libraries (primary sources). These studies have shown that there are 400 to 500 human intestinal microbial species, with 30 to 40 species accounting for 99% of the total population (refs 9, 23, 24, primary sources 15, 35 BNID 117017)."
Entered by Uri M
ID 117016