Key concepts about microbiota

A microbiota is a community of micro-organisms (bacteria, yeasts, fungi, viruses) living in a specific environment. There is therefore a soil microbiota and an ocean microbiota, but also a number of microbiota associated with the human body: skin microbiota, vaginal microbiota, etc. and the one that has been studied most closely, the intestinal microbiota.

Every individual has an intestinal microbiota that is specific to them, comprised of about 160 different bacterial species.

The various microbiota play important roles for our health

  • 10,000 billion
    the number of bacteria
    in the intestinal
    microbiota

  • 540,000
    the average
    number of
    microbial genes
    that we host

  • 160
    the number of
    different bacterial
    species which
    make up
    the microbiota of
    a healthy individual

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