Investigate archaea with the Eurofins Genomics Microbiome Profiling 3.0 service! In addition to profiling bacteria and fungi, we now offer profiling of the archaea community in your samples. Why did we include archaea? It has been found that archaea are associated with conditions such as irritable bowel disease, obesity, anorexia nervosa, but also with infectious diseases like brain abscesses. Methanogenic archaea in the digestive tract of ruminants are the main producers of the greenhouse gas methane. Archaea also play roles in the microbiomes of the human skin and mouth, they show growth- and health-promoting effects on plants, and are present in the microbiome of corals, intracellular niches in amoebae, protozoa, and termites. The option to profile archaea provides a tool for researchers to broaden the knowledge about the effects and impact of archaea.

1. www.eurofins.comeurofinsgenomics.com
Microbiome Profiling 3.0
Introduction of
Archaea Profiling
By Dr Andreas Ebertz

2. Update of the
Microbiome Profiling 3.0 Service
We updated the Eurofins Genomics Microbiome Profiling
service!
Introducing: INVIEW Microbiome Profiling 3.0
What’s new?
In addition to profiling bacteria and fungi,
we now offer profiling of the archaea
community in your samples.

3. Why did we include archaea?
- The knowledge about the archaea’s detailed physiological or clinical
relevance in humans is rather low
- Archaea gain more and more interest as certain taxa have been found
in association with different conditions:
• Irritable bowel disease
• Obesity
• Anorexia nervosa
• Infectious diseases like brain abscesses
- Archaea seem to be not pathogenic to humans per se,
but these findings point to opportunism and potential
pathogenicity
Nkamga et al. 2017

4. Why did we include archaea?
Archaea seem to have additional diverse and important roles:
• In the microbiomes of the human skin and mouth
• Growth- and health-promoting effects on plants
• Present in the microbiome of corals, intracellular niches in amoebae,
protozoa, and termites
van Bruggen et al., 1985; Wegley et al., 2004; Chaban et al., 2006; Janssen et al., 2008; Lins-de-Barros et al., 2010; Horz and Conrads, 2011; Koskinen
et al., 2017; Taffner et al., 2018

5. Why did we include archaea?
- Methanogenic archaea in the digestive tract of ruminants are the main
producers of methane
- Investigations of these methanogenic archaea could potentially lead to
reduced methane emission and a substantial long-term impact on the
environment
- Methane is an abundant
greenhouse gas that
impacts the greenhouse
effect 25 times more than
carbon dioxide (CO2)
Dridi et al., 2011

6. Why did we include archaea?
The option to profile archaea provides a tool for researchers to broaden
the knowledge about the effects and impact of archaea.
Microbiome Profiling 3.0 Service:
- Choose 1 to 4 targets per sample
- 16S targets for archaea and bacteria
- ITS targets for fungi
- Focus on archaea, bacteria or fungi only,
or analyse the entire microbial community
when choosing more targets

7. Example: the gut archaeome
- Archaea are members of the gut microbiome
- The impact of archaea on human health is given more attention in
recent research
- Currently, about 20 different archaeal taxa have been found as the
part of the gut microbiome of humans:
• Anaerobic methanogenic archaea constantly
utilise and remove hydrogen (H2) (generated
during bacterial fermentation processes) to
metabolise their substrate to methane
• This seems to prevent the accumulation of
acids and reaction end-products and contributes
to the reduction of the gas partial pressure in the
colon (removal of H2 and CO2)
Dridi et al., 2011; Gaci et al., 2014; Koskinen et al., 2017; Nkamga et al., 2017

8. Example: the gut archaeome
- Methanogenic archaea account for approximately 10 % of the anaerobic gut
microbes
- Due to the removal of H2 by methanogen archaea the activity of poly-
saccharide consuming anaerobic bacteria could be enhanced
 This could increase the caloric intake by the colon resulting in weight gain
- Increased concentrations of Methanobrevibacter smithii, the predominant
archaeal species in the human gut, were observed in obese subjects
- Increased amount of methane (produced by methanogenic archaea) in the
breath is associated with a higher average BMI
- Contrary to these results, increased numbers of
M. smithii have also been found in anorexia patients
Samuel and Gordon, 2006; Nkamga et al., 2017
What are the effects of methanogenic archaea in the gut?

9. Your options
The InView Microbiome Profiling 3.0
- Identification and classification of the
microbial population in a variety of
environmental, food or clinical samples
- Use of Illumina sequencing platform
- For individual profiling projects select
one or several target region(s):
• Bacterial taxonomic profiling
16S: V1-V3, V3-V4 and V3-V5
• Fungal taxonomic profiling
ITS: ITS1 and ITS2
• Archeael taxonomic profiling
16S target
You prefer another target
region(s)?
Choose the “2nd PCR Microbiome
Profiling option”
- Just do the first target-specific
PCR step in your own lab
- Eurofins Genomics continues
with the purification of the PCR
products, the index PCR and
sequencing
- This offers full flexibility of the
target region combined with
cost-effective outsourcing of
the remaining processes

10. Contact us
For further details on the InView Microbiome Profiling 3.0 visit
www.eurofinsgenomics.eu/16s
Or contact us:
Toll free phone numbers for Europe at
www.eurofinsgenomics.eu/free-phone
Via email:
gatc-support@eurofins.com

11. References:
Chaban, B., Ng, S.Y., Jarrell, K.F. (2006) Archaeal habitats e from the extreme to the ordinary. Can J Microbiol.
52:73e116.
Dridi, B., Raoult, D., Drancourt, M. (2011) Archaea as emerging organisms in complex human microbiomes.
Anaerobe. 17(2):56-63.
Gaci, N., Borrel, G., Tottey, W., O’Toole, P. W., & Brugère, J.-F. (2014) Archaea and the human gut: New
beginning of an old story. World J. Gastroenterol. 20(43):16062-78.
Horz, H.-P. and Conrads, G. (2011) Methanogenic Archaea and oral infections — ways to unravel the black box.
J Oral Microbiol. 3:10.3402/jom.v3i0.5940.
Janssen, P. H., & Kirs, M. (2008). Structure of the Archaeal Community of the Rumen. Appl. Environ. Microbiol.
74(12):3619-25.
Koskinen, K., Pausan, M. R., Perras, A. K., Beck, M., Bang, C., Mora, M., Schilhabel, A., Schmitz, R., Moissl-
Eichinger, C. (2017) First Insights into the Diverse Human Archaeome: Specific Detection of Archaea in the
Gastrointestinal Tract, Lung, and Nose and on Skin. mBio, 8(6): e00824–17.
Lins-de-Barros, M.M., Vieira, R.P., Cardoso, A.M., Monteiro, V.A., Turque, A.S., Silveira, C.B., Albano, R.M.,
Clementino, M.M., Martins, O.B. (2010) Archaea, Bacteria, and Algal Plastids Associated with the Reef-Building
Corals Siderastrea stellata and Mussismilia hispida from Búzios, South Atlantic Ocean, Brazil. Microbiol. Ecol.
59(3):523-32.
Moissl-Eichinger C, Probst AJ, Birarda G, Auerbach A, Koskinen K, Wolf P, Holman H-YN.(2017) Human age
and skin physiology shape diversity and abundance of Archaea on skin. Sci Rep 7:4039.
Nkamga, V.D., Henrissat, B., Drancourt, M. (2017) Archaea: Essential inhabitants of the human digestive
microbiota. Hum. Microbiome J. 3:1-8.
Taffner, J., Erlacher, A., Bragina, A., Berg, C., Moissl-Eichinger, C., & Berg, G. (2018) What Is the Role of
Archaea in Plants? New Insights from the Vegetation of Alpine Bogs. mSphere, 3(3):e00122–18.
van Bruggen, J.J.A., Stumm, C.K., Zwart, K.B., Vogels, G.D. (1985) Endosymbiotic methanogenic bacteria of
the sapropelic amoeba Mastigella. FEMS Microbiol. Lett. 31:187e92.
Wegley, L., Yu, Y., Breitbart, M., Casas, V., Kline, D., Rohwer, F. (2004) Coral-associated Archaea. Marine
Ecology Progress Series. 273. 10.3354/meps273089.