Prebiotic galactooligosaccharides activate mucin and pectic galactan utilization pathways in the human gut symbiont Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron.

ABSTRACT: Galactooligosaccharides (GOS) are prebiotic carbohydrates that impart changes in the gut bacterial composition of formula-fed infants to more closely resemble that of breast-fed infants. Consuming human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) provides specific bacterial strains with an advantage for colonizing the infant intestine. These same effects are seen in infants after GOS consumption, however GOS are very complex mixtures and the underlying molecular mechanisms of how GOS mimic HMOs are relatively unknown. Here we studied the effects of GOS utilization on a prominent gut symbiont, Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, which has been previously shown to consume HMOs via mucin O-glycan degradation pathways. We show that several pathways for targeting O-mucin glycans are activated in B. thetaiotaomicron

SUBMITTER: Lammerts van Bueren A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5238430 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature