Enhancing nutritional niche and host defenses by modifying the gut microbiome

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Qing Sun, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Nic M Vega, Emory University; Bernardo Cervantes, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Christopher P Mancuso, Boston University; Ning Mao, Boston University; Megan N Taylor, Emory University; James J Collins, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Ahmad S Khalil, Boston University; Jeff Gore, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Timothy K Lu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Language: English
• Date: 2022-11-01
• Publisher: Embo press
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2022 The Authors. Published under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.15252/msb.20209933
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Molecular Systems Biology
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 11
• Start Page: e9933
• End Page: e9933
• Grant/Funding Information: This project was supported by grant HR0011‐15‐C‐0091 from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
• Keywords: cellulose; bacteria community; Caenorhabditis elegans; gut microbiome; pathogen; Gastrointestinal Microbiome; Microbiota; Animals; Bacteria; nutrition
• Research Categories: Biology, General; Engineering, Chemical

Abstract

The gut microbiome is essential for processing complex food compounds and synthesizing nutrients that the host cannot digest or produce, respectively. New model systems are needed to study how the metabolic capacity provided by the gut microbiome impacts the nutritional status of the host, and to explore possibilities for altering host metabolic capacity via the microbiome. Here, we colonized the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans gut with cellulolytic bacteria that enabled C. elegans to utilize cellulose, an otherwise indigestible substrate, as a carbon source. Cellulolytic bacteria as a community component in the worm gut can also support additional bacterial species with specialized roles, which we demonstrate by using Lactobacillus plantarum to protect C. elegans against Salmonella enterica infection. This work shows that engineered microbiome communities can be used to endow host organisms with novel functions, such as the ability to utilize alternate nutrient sources or to better fight pathogenic bacteria.