Human Symbionts Use a Host-Like Pathway for Surface Fucosylation

Coyne, Michael J.; Reinap, Barbara; Lee, Martin M.; Comstock, Laurie E.

doi:10.1126/science.1106469

Cited by 262 publications

(271 citation statements)

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“…Another feature of the ability of BT3172 to sense the neighboring polysaccharide landscape is that it can modulate "mimicry" so that the surface polysaccharide structure of the bacterium can be altered to match the surrounding landscape, possibly allowing the bacterium to avoid eliciting a host immune response (68).…”

Section: Environmental Sensing Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bacteroides: the Good, the Bad, and the Nitty-Gritty

2007

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SUMMARY Summary: Bacteroides species are significant clinical pathogens and are found in most anaerobic infections, with an associated mortality of more than 19%. The bacteria maintain a complex and generally beneficial relationship with the host when retained in the gut, but when they escape this environment they can cause significant pathology, including bacteremia and abscess formation in multiple body sites. Genomic and proteomic analyses have vastly added to our understanding of the manner in which Bacteroides species adapt to, and thrive in, the human gut. A few examples are (i) complex systems to sense and adapt to nutrient availability, (ii) multiple pump systems to expel toxic substances, and (iii) the ability to influence the host immune system so that it controls other (competing) pathogens. B. fragilis, which accounts for only 0.5% of the human colonic flora, is the most commonly isolated anaerobic pathogen due, in part, to its potent virulence factors. Species of the genus Bacteroides have the most antibiotic resistance mechanisms and the highest resistance rates of all anaerobic pathogens. Clinically, Bacteroides species have exhibited increasing resistance to many antibiotics, including cefoxitin, clindamycin, metronidazole, carbapenems, and fluoroquinolones (e.g., gatifloxacin, levofloxacin, and moxifloxacin).

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Section: Environmental Sensing Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bacteroides: the Good, the Bad, and the Nitty-Gritty

2007

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“…Analyses of bacteria metabolically labeled with 3 H-fucose and AAL probing of blots were performed as described (5). Glycoproteins were stained in gel with the Pro-Q Emerald 300 Glycoprotein Stain (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA).…”

Section: Analysis Of Products Separated By Sds/pagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The importance of these fucosylated molecules to the Bacteroides is demonstrated by the defect in intestinal colonization by a B. fragilis mutant that cannot add fucose to capsular polysaccharides and glycoproteins (5). An fkp-specific probe hybridized with the genomic DNA of four other related species and each of these organisms incorporates exogenous fucose into glycoproteins (5). The amount of exogenous fucose incorporated into the glycoproteins of the numerically abundant colonic species Bacteroides distasonis far exceeded that of the other species tested, making it an interesting subject for further study.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We recently showed that a novel bacterial enzyme, Fkp, allows B. fragilis to incorporate exogenous fucose, acquired from its ecosystem by the breakdown of plant polysaccharides and host glycans, into its capsular polysaccharides and glycoproteins (5). The importance of these fucosylated molecules to the Bacteroides is demonstrated by the defect in intestinal colonization by a B. fragilis mutant that cannot add fucose to capsular polysaccharides and glycoproteins (5).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Phase-variable expression of a family of glycoproteins imparts a dynamic surface to a symbiont in its human intestinal ecosystem

Fletcher

Coyne

Bentley

et al. 2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The recent report of the synthesis of glycoproteins by the abundant intestinal symbionts Bacteroides showed that these organisms use a novel bacterial enzyme to decorate their surfaces with a sugar residue derived from their environment. As a first step in understanding the importance of these glycoproteins to the bacteria and to the bacterial-host symbiosis, we identified and characterized the abundant glycoproteins of Bacteroides distasonis Using lectin-affinity purification followed by tandem mass spectrometry, we identified a family of at least nine glycoproteins, similar only to the S-layer glycoproteins of Tannerella forsythia. Analysis of one of these purified glycoproteins demonstrated that the glycan is primarily a polymer of xylose, a monosaccharide rarely found in bacterial glycans. Even more unexpected was the finding that seven of nine of the glycoprotein promoters undergo DNA inversion, a process that we show is active in their endogenous human environment. Using cross-species functional assays, we show that a single serine family site-specific recombinase globally mediates the inversions of these glycoprotein promoters. This regulatory mechanism is similar to that of the Bacteroides fragilis capsular polysaccharides and establishes DNA inversion as a general and ancient means of regulation of glycan-containing surface molecules of these important human intestinal symbionts.

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“…Positive interactions would promote the persistence of a core microbiota, while negative interactions would reduce microbial co-occurrence, potentially leading to variation in microbiota composition among host individuals. Specific instances of competition, metabolite crossfeeding and other among-microbe interactions are known, (for example, Coyne et al, 2005;Donohoe et al, 2011;Rosenthal et al, 2011), but the overall contribution of positive and negative interactions to the microbial community has rarely been considered. Exceptionally, Faust et al (2012) found that most interactions in the human microbiota are negative, suggesting that processes such as competition and niche differentiation may be important determinants of community structure in this system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The inconstant gut microbiota of Drosophila species revealed by 16S rRNA gene analysis

2013

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The gut microorganisms in some animals are reported to include a core microbiota of consistently associated bacteria that is ecologically distinctive and may have coevolved with the host. The core microbiota is promoted by positive interactions among bacteria, favoring shared persistence; its retention over evolutionary timescales is evident as congruence between host phylogeny and bacterial community composition. This study applied multiple analyses to investigate variation in the composition of gut microbiota in drosophilid flies. First, the prevalence of five previously described gut bacteria (Acetobacter and Lactobacillus species) in individual flies of 21 strains (10 Drosophila species) were determined. Most bacteria were not present in all individuals of most strains, and bacterial species pairs co-occurred in individual flies less frequently than predicted by chance, contrary to expectations of a core microbiota. A complementary pyrosequencing analysis of 16S rRNA gene amplicons from the gut microbiota of 11 Drosophila species identified 209 bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs), with near-saturating sampling of sequences, but none of the OTUs was common to all host species. Furthermore, in both of two independent sets of Drosophila species, the gut bacterial community composition was not congruent with host phylogeny. The final analysis identified no common OTUs across three wild and four laboratory samples of D. melanogaster. Our results yielded no consistent evidence for a core microbiota in Drosophila. We conclude that the taxonomic composition of gut microbiota varies widely within and among Drosophila populations and species. This is reminiscent of the patterns of bacterial composition in guts of some other animals, including humans.

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Human Symbionts Use a Host-Like Pathway for Surface Fucosylation

Cited by 262 publications

References 16 publications

Bacteroides: the Good, the Bad, and the Nitty-Gritty

Bacteroides: the Good, the Bad, and the Nitty-Gritty

Phase-variable expression of a family of glycoproteins imparts a dynamic surface to a symbiont in its human intestinal ecosystem

The inconstant gut microbiota of Drosophila species revealed by 16S rRNA gene analysis

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