Species-specific dynamic responses of gut bacteria to a mammalian glycan.

ABSTRACT:

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The mammalian intestine provides nutrients to hundreds of bacterial species. Closely related species often harbor homologous nutrient utilization genes and cocolonize the gut, raising questions regarding the strategies mediating their stable coexistence. Here we reveal that related Bacteroides species that can utilize the mammalian glycan chondroitin sulfate (CS) have diverged in the manner in which they temporally regulate orthologous CS utilization genes. Whereas certain Bacteroides species display a transient surge in CS utilization transcripts upon exposure to CS, other species exhibit sustained activation of these genes. Remarkably, species-specific expression dynamics are retained even when the key players governing a particular response are replaced by those from

SUBMITTER: Raghavan V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4403648 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature