Evidence map›Paper›PMID 31469824›Full record

ArticlePLoS biology2019

Artificially selecting microbial communities: If we can breed dogs, why not microbiomes?

Flor I Arias-Sánchez, Björn Vessman, Sara Mitri

Open access · goldAbstract readComment
In one paragraph

Article in PLoS biology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
33citing papers in PubMed
2.9field-weighted citation impact, top 8% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

33 citing papers in PubMed, 75 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
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  10. Evolutionary dynamics of nascent multicellular lineages.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025
    Article
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  15. Review
  16. Article
  17. The Microbial Connection to Sustainable Agriculture.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023
    Review
  18. Review
  19. Article
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Flor I Arias-SánchezDepartment of Fundamental Microbiology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.ORCID 0000-0003-4422-7496
Björn VessmanDepartment of Fundamental Microbiology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Sara MitriDepartment of Fundamental Microbiology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.ORCID 0000-0003-3930-5357
University of Lausanne · CH

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Natural microbial communities perform many functions that are crucial for human well-being. Yet we have very little control over them, and we do not know how to optimize their functioning. One idea is to breed microbial communities as we breed dogs: by comparing a set of microbiomes and allowing the best-performing ones to generate new communities, and so on. Although this idea seems simple, designing such a selection experiment brings with it many decisions with surprising outcomes. Xie and colleagues developed a computational model that reveals this complexity and shows how different experimental design decisions can impact the success of such an experiment.

Indexed as

MicrobiotaAnimalsBreedingDogsHumans

Identifiers

PMID31469824
PMCPMC6716632
OpenAlexW2971008880

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.