Obesity is a growing epidemic due to an accelerated phase of industrialization and urbanization with the overfed people
now outnumbered the underfed. It is the major public health problem with a lot of research interest as it is associated
with many complicated chronic disorders such as type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and cancers. A global
estimation of 2.8 million deaths per year is due to obesity and there are tremendous on-going efforts to identify hosts
and environmental factors that infl uence the cause and pathogenesis of obesity. Concerted efforts from different research
groups had successfully shown that obese subjects have altered composition of gut microbiota and transplantation of this
microbiota infl uences body weight in the germ-free recipient mice. The advancement of technology had made possible
the study of gut microbiota which was unculturable for better understanding of their impact to human health. Rapid
deep sequencing of DNA at reasonable cost through various options of platforms followed by data analysis using robust
bioinformatic tools are an important way of analysing the gut microbiome. Here we review the role of gut microbiota
which modulates host’s metabolic functions and gene expression, facilitating the extraction and storage of energy from the
ingested dietary substances and leading to body-weight gain. We will discuss on the different techniques used, focusing
on the high-defi nition technologies for the determination of the composition, function and ecology of gut microbiota. This
allows the appropriate selection of platform which becomes the key for success of subsequent research.