Research Progress of Human Gut Microbiome for Forensic Personal Characterization

Human intestinal tract accommodates the most varieties and quantity of microbes in human body, establishing the colonies of bacteria, viruses, fungi, archaea and eukaryotes that have come into being the so-called human gut microbiome (HGM). Evidently, HGM is characteristic of enormous amount of microbes, long-duration stability and liability of individual specificity, hence making it promising to arise as a novel biomarker for forensic personal identification. Factually, the explosion of microbiomics research occurred along with the availability of high-throughput sequencing in the last decade so that the resulting novel discoveries and technologies inspired forensic scientists to seek the adequacy of practical utilization. This article tried to expatiate the characteristics of HGM and microbial molecular markers like 16S rRNA gene and internal transcribed spacer (ITS), illustrate the metagenomics sequencing and detection methods for common bacteria, viruses, fungi, archaea and eukaryotes, consequently having HGM reviewed about its research progress in relations to individual characteristics of gender, body mass index, diet, age, geographic location, race and disease. The applicable potential was therefore analyzed for HGM to play role into personal characterization and even the individual identification. Some references ought to be provided for the interested investigators.