Bacterial colonization factors control specificity and stability of the gut microbiota.

ABSTRACT: Mammals harbour a complex gut microbiome, comprising bacteria that confer immunological, metabolic and neurological benefits. Despite advances in sequence-based microbial profiling and myriad studies defining microbiome composition during health and disease, little is known about the molecular processes used by symbiotic bacteria to stably colonize the gastrointestinal tract. We sought to define how mammals assemble and maintain the Bacteroides, one of the most numerically prominent genera of the human microbiome. Here we find that, whereas the gut normally contains hundreds of bacterial species, germ-free mice mono-associated with a single Bacteroides species are resistant to colonization by the same, but not different, species. To identify bacterial mechanisms for species-specific satura

SUBMITTER: Lee SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3893107 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature