Investigating the Relationship Between the Microbiome and Environmental Characteristics

Abstract

Recent research has shown that the microscopic communities found in people and in the environment play a large role in human health and different diseases. A microbial community is called a microbiome, and it is found using sequencing techniques to quantify the presence of operational taxonomic units (OTUs). The presence of allergies and asthma have been linked to the environmental microbiome during developmental years. This project investigates the interplay between environmental factors and the microbiome. To better understand this relationship, three data sets are studied: OTU count data, characteristics of the home, and diversity statistics. First, the dimension of the data was reduced through pre-processing. Several techniques, including analysis of variance, principal component analysis (PCA) and volcano plots, are used to explore and visualize the data. Correlation analysis on diversity statistics was also employed to explore the data. Finally, predictive modeling was implemented to reveal associations between different home characteristics and the microbiome. Site was determined to be the most significant factor in separating the OTU data.