Host-Microbe Biology

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a key opportunistic respiratory pathogen in patients with cystic fibrosis and non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis. The genomes of these pathogens are enriched with mobile genetic elements including diverse temperate phages. While the temperate phages of the Liverpool epidemic strain have been shown to be active in the human lung and enhance...

Accumulating evidence shows that the gut microbiota regulates host metabolism by producing a series of metabolites, such as amino acids, bile acids, fatty acids, and others. These metabolites have a positive or negative effect on host health. Antibiotic exposure can disrupt the gut microbiota and thereby affect host metabolism and physiology. However, there are a limited number of studies addressing whether antibiotic effects on the gut...

The metabolism of lactate is important for infant gut health and may lead to acute lactate and/or H₂ accumulation, pain, and crying as observed in colicky infants. Functional human studies often faced ethical challenges due to invasive medical procedures; thus, in this study, we implemented PolyFermS fermentation models to mimic the infant proximal colon, which were inoculated with immobilized fecal microbiota of two 2-month-...

It is increasingly accepted that the microbial symbionts of eukaryotes can have profound effects on host ecology and evolution. However, the relative contribution that they make directly to ecosystem processes, like energy and nutrient flows, is less explicitly acknowledged and, in many cases, only poorly constrained.