Metaproteomic analysis of human gut microbiome in digestive and metabolic diseases

Metaproteomics, as a subfield of proteomics, has quickly emerged as a pivotal tool for global characterization of a microbiome system at a functional level. It has been increasingly applied in studying human digestive and metabolic diseases, and provides information-rich data to identify the dysbiosis of human gut microbiome related to healthy or disease states to elucidate the molecular events underlying host-microbiota interplays. While significant technical challenges still exist, this emerging technology has been demonstrated to provide essential information in interrogating functional changes in the human gut microbiome, complementary to metagenomics and metatranscriptomics. This chapter overviews the overall metaproteomic work flow and its recent applications in studying human gut microbiome relevant to digestive and metabolic diseases.