The South American MicroBiome Archive (saMBA)

The South American Microbiome Archive (saMBA) is the largest archive of gut microbiome samples from South American populations analysed under an unified workflow.

The article describes the process of gathering and analysing the microbiome data, as well as the main findings. The harmonised dataset can be downloaded from Zenodo and the workflow used in the analysis is available on GitHub. All generated resources, including the article, are publicly available to propel microbiome research globally, specially in other neglected world regions.

The motivation to start this project is described here. If it resonated and you’re interested in collaborating, please get in touch.

Plans for future developments

Below I share some ideas to expand saMBA. I made this public to keep the users informed and to invite people interested in contributing in any of these points to reach out.

• Build an R package to facilitate the download of the outputs in Zenodo
• Implement the workflow as a Docker image so users can deploy it.
  • Update (01/Jun/2025): Docker image here
• Expand saMBA (the resource) to include samples from other bodysites of southamericans.
• Expand the workflow to include the analysis of projects using whole genome sequencing.