The Metaproteomics Initiative: five years of community-driven progress
The Metaproteomics Initiative was officially launched in 2021 to strengthen collaboration, promote knowledge exchange, and support and lead standardization efforts within the growing metaproteomics community. Over the past 5 years, the Initiative has developed into a structured, global network of researchers. It has launched community-driven benchmark studies, helped shape emerging metadata and reporting standards, developed practical guidance and training materials, organized international symposia, and fostered connections across the microbiome research landscape ( https://metaproteomics.org/ ). We outline the Initiative's organization, activities, achievements, and ongoing efforts, and reflect on how sustained, community-led coordination has shaped the development of metaproteomics as a field. We further position the Grand Metaproteome Challenges as a next step toward coordinated, community-scale biological research, aimed at advancing functional microbiome studies across clinical, industrial, and environmental application domains, and invite engagement from the wider microbiome and omics communities. Video Abstract.
Authors
- Manuel Kleiner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6904-0287)
- Robert L. Hettich (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7708-786X)
- Martin Pabst (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9897-0723)
- Dirk Benndorf (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4021-8525)
- Jagroop Pandhal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0316-8031)
- Bart Mesuere (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0610-3441)
- Anke Trautwein‐Schult (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3272-5746)
- Nico Jehmlich (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5638-6868)
- Lucia Grenga (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5560-1717)
- C. Henry
- Jana Seifert (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7690-8539)
- Pieter Verschaffelt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6675-1048)
- Leyuan Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2063-4441)
- Jean Armengaud (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1589-445X)
- Gelio Alves (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1595-1445)
- Tim Van Den Bossche (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5916-2587)
- Madita Brauer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9709-9155)
- Robert Heyer
- Daniel Figeys
- P Jagtap
- Phillip B. Pope
- Magnus Ø. Arntzen
- Paul Wilmes
- Benoit J. Kunath
Institutions
- University of Hohenheim (DE)
- University of East Anglia (GB)
- HOGENT University of Applied Sciences and Arts (BE)
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (US)
- National Institutes of Health (US)
- University of Minnesota (US)
- Translational Research Institute (AU)
- Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (DE)
- North Carolina State University (US)
- University of Ottawa (CA)
- University of Luxembourg (LU)
- Bielefeld University (DE)
- AgroParisTech (FR)
- Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (FR)
- Université Paris-Saclay (FR)
- Norwich Research Park (GB)
- Universitätsmedizin Greifswald (DE)
- United States National Library of Medicine (US)
- Ghent University Hospital (BE)
- Microbiologie de l’alimentation au service de la santé (FR)
- Quadram Institute (GB)
- Ghent University (BE)
- Universität Greifswald (DE)
- Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (FR)
- Anhalt University of Applied Sciences (DE)
- Technologies pour la Santé (FR)
- Luxembourg Institute of Health (LU)
- Leibniz Institute for Analytical Sciences - ISAS (DE)
- CEA Paris-Saclay (FR)
- Beijing Proteome Research Center (CN)
- VIB-UGent Center for Medical Biotechnology (BE)
- Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NO)
- University of Sheffield (GB)
- Delft University of Technology (NL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Microbiome
- Published
- 2026-07-23
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-026-02463-0
- Primary Topic
- Advanced Proteomics Techniques and Applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00