Pectin · The microbial degradation and utilization of complex pectins by Bacteroides in the human intestine
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2016-04-01 → 2018-03-31
- EU contribution
- €195,455
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
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Results in brief
The microbial degradation and utilization of complex pectins by Bacteroides in the human intestine
The human large bowel is colonized by a community of microbes, the microbiota, which has a significant impact on human health and nutrition. Thus, around 10% of calories we consume are derived from the short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) generated by the microbiota, while these SCFAs also have health benefits exemplified by butyrate, which protects against colon cancer. The human gut microbiota (HGM) also has an impact on type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. It is evident, therefore, that the HGM plays a pivotal role in maintaining human health and nutrition. Complex carbohydrates are the major nutrients available to the microbiota. Given the importance of glycans (complex carbohydrates) to the HGMa, dietary and nutraceutical strategies, based on complex carbohydrates, can, potentially, be deployed to ensure that the structure of this ecosystem maximizes human health. This approach, however, is greatly restricted by a lack of understanding of the mechanisms by which glycans are metabolized by the microbiota. Dr Venditto, under the supervision of Professor Gilbert, moved to Newcastle to dissect the mechanisms of complex glycan utilization by the HGM. The PECTIN project focused on how these abundant glycans in the human diet are metabolized by prominent members of the HGM, exploiting the bacterium Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron (B. theta) as the model organism. The PECTIN project: i) generated models for how B. theta and other members of the HGM metabolized the five polysaccharides that comprise the pectin component of the human diet; ii) determined the extent to which there is functional cross-talk between different members of the HGM during pectin metabolism. Furthermore, the MSC fellow Dr Venditto expanded her professional horizon by obtaining new skills in detailed enzyme characterization, anaerobic microbiology, bioinformatics, in vivo bacterial genetic manipulation and the design of microbial ecological experiments. Furthermore, she has actively disseminated his research to public, industrial and academic beneficiaries to maximize the impact of the project.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The large bowel is colonized by a community of microbes, the microbiota, which has a significant impact on human health and nutrition. The major nutrients available to these organisms are dietary glycans. Thus, glycan-based dietary and nutraceutical strategies can, potentially, be deployed to encourage the dominance of beneficial microbes within the microbiota, ensuring the microbial ecosystem has a positive influence on human health. This approach, however, is greatly restricted by a critical lack of understanding of the mechanisms by which complex glycans are metabolized by the microbiota. Significantly, the wealth of genomic/metagenomic microbiota sequence data now available, presents an exciting and unparalleled opportunity to make decisive advances in our understanding of glycan metabolism in the human large bowel. This project seeks to capitalize on this genomic information, in harness with recent functional data from the host laboratory, to understand the mechanisms by which pectin, the major component of the human diet that is metabolized by the microbiota. The data will inform novel prebiotic and probiotic strategies to maximise the impact of the microbiota on human health. At a generic level, understanding glycan resource allocation in the microbiota represents an excellent system for studying the molecular mechanisms that lead to the evolution of novel glycanase functions, which, in turn, will provide a robust functional context to bioinformatic-based predictive biology.The fellow is Italian and has recently completed her PhD student at the University of Lisboa, Portugal, with the project FP7 Initial Training Network termed WallTraC. The fellow has experience in high throughput protein expression, enzyme activity screening and structural biology. At Newcastle University she will have the opportunity to develop skills in adanced mechanistic enzymology, anaerobic microbiology, bioinformatics, in vivo bacterial genetic manipulation and microbial ecology.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE · Newcastle Upon TyneCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union