A comprehensive repertoire of prokaryotic species identified in human beings

Abstract : The compilation of the complete prokaryotic repertoire associated with human beings as commensals or pathogens is a major goal for the scientific and medical community. The use of bacterial culture techniques remains a crucial step to describe new prokaryotic species. The large number of officially acknowledged bacterial species described since 1980 and the recent increase in the number of recognised pathogenic species have highlighted the absence of an exhaustive compilation of species isolated in human beings. By means of a thorough investigation of several large culture databases and a search of the scientific literature, we built an online database containing all human-associated prokaryotic species described, whether or not they had been validated and have standing in nomenclature. We list 2172 species that have been isolated in human beings. They were classified in 12 different phyla, mostly in the Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, and Bacteroidetes phyla. Our online database is useful for both clinicians and microbiologists and forms part of the Human Microbiome Project, which aims to characterise the whole human microbiota and help improve our understanding of the human predisposition and susceptibility to infectious agents.