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FEMS Microbiology Letters Aug 2022The stability of gut microbiota is essential for the host's health. Parabacteroides spp., core members of the human gut microbiota, have an average abundance of 1.27% in... (Review)
Review
The stability of gut microbiota is essential for the host's health. Parabacteroides spp., core members of the human gut microbiota, have an average abundance of 1.27% in humans of 12 populations. Parabacteroides have recently been reported to have a close relationship with host health (e.g. metabolic syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease and obesity). Parabacteroides have the physiological characteristics of carbohydrate metabolism and secreting short chain fatty acids. However, antimicrobial resistance of Parabacteroides to antibiotics (such as clindamycin, moxifloxacin and cefoxitin) should not be ignored. In this review, we primarily focus on Parabacteroides distasonis, Parabacteroides goldsteinii, Parabacteroides johnsonii and Parabacteroides merdae and discuss their relationships with host disease, diet and the prevention or induction of diseases. Pa. distasonis and Pa. goldsteinii may be viewed as potential next generation probiotic candidates due to their protective effects on inflammation and obesity in mice. We also discuss the potential therapeutic application of Parabacteroides spp. in maintaining host-intestine homeostasis.
Topics: Animals; Bacteroides; Gastrointestinal Microbiome; Humans; Intestines; Mice; Obesity; Probiotics
PubMed: 35945336
DOI: 10.1093/femsle/fnac072 -
Immunity Feb 2023The physiological and immune changes that occur during pregnancy are associated with worsened disease outcomes during infection and sepsis. How these perturbations...
The physiological and immune changes that occur during pregnancy are associated with worsened disease outcomes during infection and sepsis. How these perturbations exacerbate inflammation has not been explored. Here, using antibiotic treatment and fecal microbial transfers, we showed that sepsis susceptibility is driven by pregnancy-induced changes to gut microbiome in mice and humans. Integrative multiomics and genetically engineered bacteria revealed that reduced Parabacteroides merdae (P. merdae) abundance during pregnancy led to decreased formononetin (FMN) and increased macrophage death. Mechanistically, FMN inhibited macrophage pyroptosis by suppressing nuclear accumulation of hnRNPUL2 and subsequent binding to the Nlrp3 promoter. Treatment with FMN or deletion of murine hnRNPUL2 protected against septic inflammation. Intestinal abundances of P. merdae and FMN inversely correlated with the progression of septic patients. Our data reveal a microbe-immune axis that is disrupted in pregnant septic hosts, highlighting the potential of the FMN-hnRNPUL2-NLRP3 axis in providing promising therapeutic strategies for sepsis.
Topics: Pregnancy; Female; Humans; Animals; Mice; Gastrointestinal Microbiome; Pyroptosis; NLR Family, Pyrin Domain-Containing 3 Protein; Macrophages; Sepsis; Inflammation
PubMed: 36792573
DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2023.01.015 -
Nature Metabolism Oct 2022Obesity, dyslipidemia and gut dysbiosis are all linked to cardiovascular diseases. A Ganoderma meroterpene derivative (GMD) has been shown to alleviate obesity and...
Obesity, dyslipidemia and gut dysbiosis are all linked to cardiovascular diseases. A Ganoderma meroterpene derivative (GMD) has been shown to alleviate obesity and hyperlipidemia through modulating the gut microbiota in obese mice. Here we show that GMD protects against obesity-associated atherosclerosis by increasing the abundance of Parabacteroides merdae in the gut and enhancing branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) catabolism. Administration of live P. merdae to high-fat-diet-fed ApoE-null male mice reduces atherosclerotic lesions and enhances intestinal BCAA degradation. The degradation of BCAAs is mediated by the porA gene expressed in P. merdae. Deletion of porA from P. merdae blunts its capacity to degrade BCAAs and leads to inefficacy in fighting against atherosclerosis. We further show that P. merdae inhibits the mTORC1 pathway in atherosclerotic plaques. In support of our preclinical findings, an in silico analysis of human gut metagenomic studies indicates that P. merdae and porA genes are depleted in the gut microbiomes of individuals with atherosclerosis. Our results provide mechanistic insights into the therapeutic potential of GMD through P. merdae in treating obesity-associated cardiovascular diseases.
Topics: Humans; Mice; Animals; Male; Cardiovascular Diseases; Amino Acids, Branched-Chain; Bacteroides; Obesity; Mice, Obese; Mechanistic Target of Rapamycin Complex 1; Atherosclerosis; Apolipoproteins E
PubMed: 36253620
DOI: 10.1038/s42255-022-00649-y -
Theranostics 2021Prior chronic treatment with statins has been shown to be associated with more favorable outcomes in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Specific changes in...
Multi-omics study reveals that statin therapy is associated with restoration of gut microbiota homeostasis and improvement in outcomes in patients with acute coronary syndrome.
Prior chronic treatment with statins has been shown to be associated with more favorable outcomes in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Specific changes in the gut microbiota and microbial metabolites have been shown to influence the progression of coronary artery disease. However, the critical microbial and metabolomic changes associated with the cardiovascular protective effects of statins in ACS remain elusive. In the present study, we performed 16S rRNA sequencing and serum metabolomic analysis in 36 ACS patients who had received chronic statin treatment, 67 ACS patients who had not, and 30 healthy volunteers. A follow-up study was conducted. Metagenomic functional prediction of important bacterial taxa was achieved using PICRUSt2. : Statins modulated the gut microbiome of ACS patients towards a healthier status, i.e., reducing potentially pathogenic bacteria such as but increasing beneficial bacteria such as , and . Moreover, prior chronic statin therapy was associated with improved outcome in ACS patients. Multi-omics analysis revealed that specific changes in bacterial taxa were associated with disease severity or outcomes either directly or by mediating metabolites such as fatty acids and prenol lipids. Finally, we discovered that important taxa associated with statins were correlated with fatty acid- and isoprenoid-related pathways that were predicted by PICRUSt2. Our study suggests that statin treatment might benefit ACS patients by modulating the composition and function of the gut microbiome, which might result in improved circulating metabolites and reduced metabolic risk. Our findings provide new insights for understanding the heterogenic roles of statins in ACS patients through host gut microbiota metabolic interactions.
Topics: Acute Coronary Syndrome; Bacteria; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Gastrointestinal Microbiome; Healthy Volunteers; Homeostasis; Humans; Hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA Reductase Inhibitors; Male; Metabolomics; Middle Aged; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S
PubMed: 33897881
DOI: 10.7150/thno.55946 -
Gut Microbes 2023The gut microbiota is involved in the production of numerous metabolites that maintain host wellbeing. The assembly of the gut microbiome is highly dynamic, and...
The gut microbiota is involved in the production of numerous metabolites that maintain host wellbeing. The assembly of the gut microbiome is highly dynamic, and influenced by many postnatal factors, moreover, little is known about the development of the gut metabolome. We showed that geography has an important influence on the microbiome dynamics in the first year of life based on two independent cohorts from China and Sweden. Major compositional differences since birth were the high relative abundance of in the Swedish cohort and in the Chinese cohort. We analyzed the development of the fecal metabolome in the first year of life in the Chinese cohort. Lipid metabolism, especially acylcarnitines and bile acids, was the most abundant metabolic pathway in the newborn gut. Delivery mode and feeding induced particular differences in the gut metabolome since birth. In contrast to C-section newborns, medium- and long-chain acylcarnitines were abundant at newborn age only in vaginally delivered infants, associated by the presence of bacteria such as and . Our data provide a basis for understanding the maturation of the fecal metabolome and the metabolic role of gut microbiota in infancy.
Topics: Gastrointestinal Microbiome; Humans; Infant, Newborn; Infant; China; Bile Acids and Salts; Amino Acids; Sweden; Bacteroides; Streptococcus; Feces; Lipid Metabolism; Feeding Behavior; Metabolic Networks and Pathways; Delivery, Obstetric; Female; Pregnancy; Cesarean Section; Longitudinal Studies; Male
PubMed: 37424334
DOI: 10.1080/19490976.2023.2231596 -
Nature Metabolism Jan 2023
PubMed: 36653667
DOI: 10.1038/s42255-023-00740-y -
Protein Science : a Publication of the... Dec 2018β-Glucuronidase (GUS) enzymes in the gastrointestinal tract are involved in maintaining mammalian-microbial symbiosis and can play key roles in drug efficacy and...
β-Glucuronidase (GUS) enzymes in the gastrointestinal tract are involved in maintaining mammalian-microbial symbiosis and can play key roles in drug efficacy and toxicity. Parabacteroides merdae GUS was identified as an abundant mini-Loop 2 (mL2) type GUS enzyme in the Human Microbiome Project gut metagenomic database. Here, we report the crystal structure of P. merdae GUS and highlight the differences between this enzyme and extant structures of gut microbial GUS proteins. We find that P. merdae GUS exhibits a distinct tetrameric quaternary structure and that the mL2 motif traces a unique path within the active site, which also includes two arginines distinctive to this GUS. We observe two states of the P. merdae GUS active site; a loop repositions itself by more than 50 Å to place a functionally-relevant residue into the enzyme's catalytic site. Finally, we find that P. merdae GUS is able to bind to homo and heteropolymers of the polysaccharide alginic acid. Together, these data broaden our understanding of the structural and functional diversity in the GUS family of enzymes present in the human gut microbiome and point to specialization as an important feature of microbial GUS orthologs.
Topics: Bacteroidaceae; Catalytic Domain; Crystallography, X-Ray; Gastrointestinal Microbiome; Glucuronidase; Humans; Models, Molecular; Protein Conformation
PubMed: 30230652
DOI: 10.1002/pro.3507 -
Frontiers in Cellular and Infection... 2017Human gut microbiota is believed to be directly or indirectly involved in cardiovascular diseases and hypertension. However, the identification and functional status of...
Human gut microbiota is believed to be directly or indirectly involved in cardiovascular diseases and hypertension. However, the identification and functional status of the hypertension-related gut microbe(s) have not yet been surveyed in a comprehensive manner. Here we characterized the gut microbiome in hypertension status by comparing fecal samples of 60 patients with primary hypertension and 60 gender-, age-, and body weight-matched healthy controls based on whole-metagenome shotgun sequencing. Hypertension implicated a remarkable gut dysbiosis with significant reduction in within-sample diversity and shift in microbial composition. Metagenome-wide association study (MGWAS) revealed 53,953 microbial genes that differ in distribution between the patients and healthy controls (false discovery rate, 0.05) and can be grouped into 68 clusters representing bacterial species. Opportunistic pathogenic taxa, such as, spp., spp., and were frequently distributed in hypertensive gut microbiome, whereas the short-chain fatty acid producer, such as, spp. and , were higher in controls. The number of hypertension-associated species also showed stronger correlation to the severity of disease. Functionally, the hypertensive gut microbiome exhibited higher membrane transport, lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis and steroid degradation, while in controls the metabolism of amino acid, cofactors and vitamins was found to be higher. We further provided the microbial markers for disease discrimination and achieved an area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.78, demonstrating the potential of gut microbiota in prediction of hypertension. These findings represent specific alterations in microbial diversity, genes, species and functions of the hypertensive gut microbiome. Further studies on the causality relationship between hypertension and gut microbiota will offer new prospects for treating and preventing the hypertension and its associated diseases.
Topics: Bacteria; Dysbiosis; Feces; Female; Gastrointestinal Microbiome; Gastrointestinal Tract; Humans; Hypertension; Male; Metagenome; Middle Aged; Whole Genome Sequencing
PubMed: 28884091
DOI: 10.3389/fcimb.2017.00381 -
New Microbes and New Infections Nov 2019sp. nov., strain Marseille-P2231 (= CSURP2231 = DSM 101860) is a new species within the family . It was isolated from a stool specimen of a 25-year-old healthy woman....
sp. nov., strain Marseille-P2231 (= CSURP2231 = DSM 101860) is a new species within the family . It was isolated from a stool specimen of a 25-year-old healthy woman. Its genome was 5 013 798 bp long with a 45.7 mol% G+C content. The closest species based on 16S rRNA sequence was strain JCM 9497 with 98.19% sequence similarity. Considering phenotypic features and comparative genome studies, we proposed the strain Marseille-P2231 as the type strain of sp. nov., a new species within the genus
PubMed: 31641517
DOI: 10.1016/j.nmni.2019.100602 -
The Journal of Biological Chemistry Apr 2016Clan CD cysteine peptidases, a structurally related group of peptidases that include mammalian caspases, exhibit a wide range of important functions, along with a...
Clan CD cysteine peptidases, a structurally related group of peptidases that include mammalian caspases, exhibit a wide range of important functions, along with a variety of specificities and activation mechanisms. However, for the clostripain family (denoted C11), little is currently known. Here, we describe the first crystal structure of a C11 protein from the human gut bacterium, Parabacteroides merdae (PmC11), determined to 1.7-Å resolution. PmC11 is a monomeric cysteine peptidase that comprises an extended caspase-like α/β/α sandwich and an unusual C-terminal domain. It shares core structural elements with clan CD cysteine peptidases but otherwise structurally differs from the other families in the clan. These studies also revealed a well ordered break in the polypeptide chain at Lys(147), resulting in a large conformational rearrangement close to the active site. Biochemical and kinetic analysis revealed Lys(147) to be an intramolecular processing site at which cleavage is required for full activation of the enzyme, suggesting an autoinhibitory mechanism for self-preservation. PmC11 has an acidic binding pocket and a preference for basic substrates, and accepts substrates with Arg and Lys in P1 and does not require Ca(2+) for activity. Collectively, these data provide insights into the mechanism and activity of PmC11 and a detailed framework for studies on C11 peptidases from other phylogenetic kingdoms.
Topics: Bacterial Proteins; Bacteroidaceae; Crystallography, X-Ray; Cysteine Proteases; Gastrointestinal Microbiome; Humans; Protein Structure, Secondary; Protein Structure, Tertiary
PubMed: 26940874
DOI: 10.1074/jbc.M115.706143