Univariate and Multivariate Statistical Analysis of Microbiome Data: An Overview

Abstract

Microbiome data is high dimensional, sparse, compositional, and over-dispersed. Therefore, modeling microbiome data is very challenging and it is an active research area. Microbiome analysis has become a progressing area of research as microorganisms constitute a large part of life. Since many methods of microbiome data analysis have been presented, this review summarizes the challenges, methods used, and the advantages and disadvantages of those methods, to serve as an updated guide for those in the field. This review also compared different methods of analysis to progress the development of newer methods.

Keywords

• microbiome
• OTU table
• probabilistic model
• regression analysis
• zero-inflated model
• hurdle model