NURECON: A Novel Online System for Determining Nutrition Requirements Based on Microbial Composition

Area of Science:

• Microbiome research
• Nutritional science
• Bioinformatics

Background:

• Diet significantly impacts gut microbiota composition and function.
• Gut microbes produce metabolites crucial for human physiology.
• Existing systems lack comprehensive nutrient deficiency identification based on gut microbiota.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop NURECON, an analytical platform for predicting nutrient deficiencies using metagenomic data.
• To establish a baseline of microbial composition and metabolic profiles from healthy individuals.
• To provide personalized dietary suggestions based on nutrient assessment.

Main Methods:

• Utilized QIIME2 for bacterial 16S rRNA analysis.
• Employed PICRUSt2 and KEGG for metabolic pathway prediction.
• Integrated the FooDB database for food compound analysis.
• Compared individual metagenomic data against a baseline from 287 healthy subjects.

Main Results:

• NURECON successfully predicts nutrient deficiencies by analyzing gut microbial data.
• The platform visualizes microbial composition, enzymes, pathways, and nutrient abundance.
• Established a reference baseline for microbial and metabolic profiles.

Conclusions:

• NURECON offers a user-friendly solution for identifying nutrient deficiencies via gut microbiome analysis.
• The platform supports dietitians in research and menu design with personalized nutritional advice.
• Facilitates interpretation and comparison of gut microbiome data in scientific literature.