Breast milk-derived human milk oligosaccharides promote Bifidobacterium interactions within a single ecosystem.

ABSTRACT: Diet-microbe interactions play an important role in modulating the early-life microbiota, with Bifidobacterium strains and species dominating the gut of breast-fed infants. Here, we sought to explore how infant diet drives distinct bifidobacterial community composition and dynamics within individual infant ecosystems. Genomic characterisation of 19 strains isolated from breast-fed infants revealed a diverse genomic architecture enriched in carbohydrate metabolism genes, which was distinct to each strain, but collectively formed a pangenome across infants. Presence of gene clusters implicated in digestion of human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) varied between species, with growth studies indicating that within single infants there were differences in the ability to utilise 2'FL and LNnT HMOs

SUBMITTER: Lawson MAE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6976680 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature