Household paired design reduces variance and increases power in multi-city gut microbiome study in multiple sclerosis

 
The iMSMS Consortium
Mult Scler. 2020 Jun 26:1352458520924594. doi: 10.1177/1352458520924594. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 33115343.
 
Summary: Computational biologist and post-doctoral scholar-employee of the Baranzini Lab, Xiaoyuan Zhao’s recent publication on the iMSMS pilot study on 128 MS and household healthy controls addresses the effects of a household experimental design, sample collection, sequencing approaches and confounding factors on shaping the gut microbiome from a multi-city study population. Her findings include household individuals sharing more similar gut microbiomes, and recruitment sites accounting for the largest sources of microbial variance. This is a pilot iMSMS study on 128 MS and household healthy controls.