Longevity & AgingNear-complete gut genome catalogue from 41 countries sharpens how we model microbial metabolism
Researchers built HRGM2, an expanded Human Reference Gut Microbiome resource containing 155,211 non-redundant, near-complete genomes from 4,824 prokaryotic species across 41 countries. Every genome meets strict quality thresholds (at least 90% complete, no more than 5% contaminated). That is a 66% increase in genomes and a 50% increase in species compared with the Unified Human Gastrointestinal Genome catalogue. The authors report that the resource improves DNA-based species profiling, helps resolve strain-level differences, and supports surveys of antibiotic resistance genes in the gut. Using only high-quality genomes also allowed automated genome-scale metabolic models of whole gut communities, which the authors say reveal disease-associated metabolic interactions among microbes. The work is a foundational tool for microbiome science rather than a clinical trial, but it could make future gut-health and aging research more reliable.
