gut microbiome
Special Issue Perspective | Host-Microbe BiologyMissing Links: the Role of Primates in Understanding the Human MicrobiomeThe gut microbiome can influence host energy balances and metabolic programming. While this information is valuable in a disease context, it also has important implications for understanding host energetics from an ecological and evolutionary perspective.
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyFucosylated Human Milk Oligosaccharides and N-Glycans in the Milk of Chinese Mothers Regulate the Gut Microbiome of Their Breast-Fed Infants during Different Lactation StagesHuman milk glycans provide a broad range of carbon sources for gut microbes in infants. Levels of protein glycosylation in human milk vary during lactation and may also be affected by the stages of gestation and lactation and by the secretor status of the mother. This was the first study to evaluate systematically dynamic changes in human milk oligosaccharides and fucosylated N-glycans in the milk of Chinese mothers with different...
Research Article | Ecological and Evolutionary ScienceIs Host Filtering the Main Driver of Phylosymbiosis across the Tree of Life?Phylosymbiosis is a pattern defined as the tendency of closely related species to host microbiota whose compositions resemble each other more than host species drawn at random from the same tree. Understanding the mechanisms behind phylosymbiosis is important because it can shed light on rules governing the assembly of host-associated microbiotas and, potentially, their coevolutionary dynamics with hosts. For example, is phylosymbiosis...
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyAsymptomatic Intestinal Colonization with Protist Blastocystis Is Strongly Associated with Distinct Microbiome Ecological PatternsGiven the results of our study and other reports of the effects of the most common human gut protist on the diversity and composition of the bacterial microbiome, Blastocystis and, possibly, other gut protists should be studied as ecosystem engineers that drive community diversity and composition.
Commentary | Host-Microbe BiologyCrowdsourcing Our National GutThe microbes of the human intestinal tract play a profound role in our health. The complex interactions between our gut microbial communities and the external environment, and the resulting functional consequences, can be difficult to disentangle.
Minireview | Novel Systems Biology TechniquesFrom Network Analysis to Functional Metabolic Modeling of the Human Gut MicrobiotaAn important hallmark of the human gut microbiota is its species diversity and complexity. Various diseases have been associated with a decreased diversity leading to reduced metabolic functionalities.
Special Issue Perspective | Host-Microbe BiologyCan Diet Influence Our Health by Altering Intestinal Microbiota-Derived Fecal Metabolites?The human gastrointestinal tract harbors a diverse, highly mutualistic microbial flora which could produce a myriad of specialized metabolites. These specialized metabolites are the chemical cellphones that gut microflora use to communicate with their human host and could potentially be used to cure diseases.
Special Issue Perspective | Host-Microbe BiologyMicrobial Eukaryotes: a Missing Link in Gut Microbiome StudiesHuman-associated microbial communities include prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms across high-level clades of the tree of life. While advances in high-throughput sequencing technology allow for the study of diverse lineages, the vast majority of studies are limited to bacteria, and very little is known on how eukaryote microbes fit in the overall microbial ecology of the human gut.
Special Issue Perspective | Host-Microbe BiologyUnraveling Interactions between the Microbiome and the Host Immune System To Decipher Mechanisms of DiseaseIn recent years, there has been a deluge of papers linking altered microbiome compositions to a myriad of diseases. Mechanistic insight into microbial drivers of disease phenotypes is essential for translation to novel therapies.
Editor's Pick Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyFunctional Changes in the Gut Microbiome Contribute to Transforming Growth Factor β-Deficient Colon CancerMost research on the gut microbiome in colon cancer focuses on taxonomic changes at the genus level using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Here, we develop a new methodology to integrate DNA and RNA data sets to examine functional shifts at the species level that are important to tumor development. We uncover several metabolic pathways in the microbiome that, when perturbed by host genetics and H. hepaticus inoculation, contribute to...