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You are what you excrete

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Residual human DNA reads in sequenced faecal samples may allow some individuals to be identified.

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Fig. 1: Human DNA in stool samples contains personal information. Collection of stool samples is a common procedure in human microbiome studies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Caitlin Guccione, Daniel McDonald & Rob Knight

  2. Division of Biomedical Informatics, Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Caitlin Guccione & Kit Curtius

  3. Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Program, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Caitlin Guccione

  4. Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Rebecca Fielding-Miller

  5. Center on Gender Equity and Health, School of Medicine, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Rebecca Fielding-Miller

  6. Division of Infectious Disease and Global Public Health, School of Medicine, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Rebecca Fielding-Miller

  7. Department of Bioengineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Rob Knight

  8. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Rob Knight

  9. Center for Microbiome Innovation, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Rob Knight

Authors
  1. Caitlin Guccione
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  2. Daniel McDonald
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  3. Rebecca Fielding-Miller
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  4. Kit Curtius
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  5. Rob Knight
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rob Knight.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Guccione, C., McDonald, D., Fielding-Miller, R. et al. You are what you excrete. Nat Microbiol 8, 1002–1003 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-023-01395-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-023-01395-x

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