| Author Summary | In metagenomics, the composition of complex microbial communities is characterized using Next Generation Sequencing technologies . |
| Discussion | To become a viable diagnostic and therapeutic tool, the evolution of sequencing technologies needs to be paralleled by progress in computational tools enabling to significantly correlate phenotypes to the smallest possible number of microbial taxa. |
| Discussion | The algorithm is general and does not rely on any specific sequencing technology , as long as a phylogenetic tree of the OTUs and the distribution of the OTUs in the different samples are available. |