Leiby JS

In 1958, an American molecular biologist Joshua Lederberg coined the word “microbiome” to define the ecological population of commensal, symbiotic, and pathogenic microbes that coexist in our bodies (Lederberg & McCray, 2001). In other words, the term “microbiome” includes all microbes residing in the body, their genomes, and ecosystems (Zarco, Vess & Ginsburg, 2012).

Introduction Microbiomes are becoming increasingly studied in many biological disciplines. These microbial communities are seemingly everywhere in the literature, and although they are of particular medical interest today, some of the first microbiomes defined were those found on plants (Whipps et al., 1988).