Dr Samuel Duodu, a Principal Investigator at the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), and Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana has commented in a recently published article by Nature Reviews Microbiology on the topic “African Microbes Matter”. Microbial communities are established players in ecosystem processes and have been shown to drive nutrient recycling, carbon sequestration and the decomposition of organic matter.
Despite the fact that microbiomes have been the subject of extensive research over the past two decades, African microbiomes are much neglected and previous studies have disproportionately focused on the Global North. This commentary article argues for increased efforts to sequence and study African microbiomes based on increasing scientific evidence such as amplicon sequence data from the Human Microbiome Project pointing to the profound effects that microbiota have on health as well as their high levels of taxonomic diversity.
Also, studies on environmental and host-associated microbiomes together confirm that microbiomes underpin virtually all ecosystem services. For example, gut microbiomes are known to have important roles in digesting recalcitrant compounds and have been implicated in several conditions including cancer and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
highlighting the lack of information regarding microbiome datasets from Africa and proposing mechanisms for increasing microbiome research in Africa, the commentary touches on three perspectives;
- Disproportionate surveys focused on the Global North
- African microbiomes: unique and under-explored
- Three pillars for increasing microbiome studies in Africa
The shortage of Africa-specific microbiome data may be linked to the fact that most studies have disproportionately focused on North America and Europe, leading to clear gaps in the current understanding of microbiomes from the Global South. The severity of the issue lies in the wealth of knowledge that is missed out as there is some evidence showing that African ecosystems are some of the most genetically diverse. Additionally, based on population genetics, Africans have higher genetic diversity, less linkage disequilibrium and population substructure compared with non-Africans.
Given the scale and challenges associated with studying African microbiomes and recent efforts to develop precision medicine, these differences may have implications for the development of health care tailored for Africans. There is a need to launch coordinated surveys of African microbiomes. As such, a plan to sequence 10 million samples including soils, water, plants, humans and animals from the African continent is underway and will require regional sequencing hubs.
While collaborations with scholars from across the globe will be essential for this monumental effort, the work must be led by Africans. This will ensure that the research is sustainable, sufficiently acknowledges Indigenous knowledge and communities and results in improved human capacity on the continent.
Learn more about efforts to broaden the depth of Africa-specific microbiome data and on perspectives discussed. Read the full article at
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-023-00925-y
