Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Ndeh D
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5388186 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Nature 20170322 7648
The metabolism of carbohydrate polymers drives microbial diversity in the human gut microbiota. It is unclear, however, whether bacterial consortia or single organisms are required to depolymerize highly complex glycans. Here we show that the gut bacterium Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron uses the most structurally complex glycan known: the plant pectic polysaccharide rhamnogalacturonan-II, cleaving all but 1 of its 21 distinct glycosidic linkages. The deconstruction of rhamnogalacturonan-II side ch ...[more]