Project description:<p>Findings from recent studies suggest that the community of microbes residing in the human body is important in disease etiology; however, it remains unclear whether personal factors modulate human microbial composition. Studies based on animal models indicate that differences in composition might be attributed to sex-mediated effects. We analyzed the relationship of sex, adiposity, and dietary fiber intake with gut microbial composition using fecal samples from human subjects. We explored the associations of these factors with metrics of community composition and specific taxon abundances. We found that men and women had significantly different microbial community composition and that women had reduced abundance of a major phylum. Adiposity was associated with gut microbiome composition and specifically in women but not in men. Fiber from fruits and vegetables and fiber from beans were each associated with increased abundance of specific bacterial taxa. These findings provide initial indications that sex, adiposity, and dietary fiber might play important roles in influencing the human gut microbiome. Better understanding of these factors may have significant implications for gastrointestinal health and disease prevention.</p>
Project description:The human gut microbiota is an important metabolic organ, yet little is known about how its individual species interact, establish dominant positions, and respond to changes in environmental factors such as diet. In this study, gnotobiotic mice were colonized with an artificial microbiota comprising 12 sequenced human gut bacterial species and fed oscillating diets of disparate composition. Rapid, reproducible, and reversible changes in the structure of this assemblage were observed. Time-series microbial RNA-Seq analyses revealed staggered functional responses to diet shifts throughout the assemblage that were heavily focused on carbohydrate and amino acid metabolism. High-resolution shotgun metaproteomics confirmed many of these responses at a protein level. One member, Bacteroides cellulosilyticus WH2, proved exceptionally fit regardless of diet. Its genome encoded more carbohydrate active enzymes than any previously sequenced member of the Bacteroidetes. Transcriptional profiling indicated that B. cellulosilyticus WH2 is an adaptive forager that tailors its versatile carbohydrate utilization strategy to available dietary polysaccharides, with a strong emphasis on plant-derived xylans abundant in dietary staples like cereal grains. Two highly expressed, diet-specific polysaccharide utilization loci (PULs) in B. cellulosilyticus WH2 were identified, one with characteristics of xylan utilization systems. Introduction of a B. cellulosilyticus WH2 library comprising >90,000 isogenic transposon mutants into gnotobiotic mice, along with the other artificial community members, confirmed that these loci represent critical diet-specific fitness determinants. Carbohydrates that trigger dramatic increases in expression of these two loci and many of the organism’s 111 other predicted PULs were identified by RNA-Seq during in vitro growth on 31 distinct carbohydrate substrates, allowing us to better interpret in vivo RNA-Seq and proteomics data. These results offer insight into how gut microbes adapt to dietary perturbations at both a community level and from the perspective of a well-adapted symbiont with exceptional saccharolytic capabilities, and illustrate the value of artificial communities. 116 samples total. In 26 of these samples, we evaluated community-wide gene expression using RNA isolated from the feces of a gnotobiotic mouse harboring an artificial community comprised of 12 human gut microbes. For these samples, we sought to determine the extent to which community gene expression is altered as a result of dietary oscillation. In the other 90 samples, we evaluated gene expression in a single species (B. cellulosilyticus WH2) grown in a defined medium supplemented with a single mono-, oligo-, or polysaccharide. For these samples, we sought to identify genes (particularly polysaccharide utilization loci) whose expression was significantly increased as a result of exposure to particular carbohydrates.