Dietary sugar silences a colonization factor in a mammalian gut symbiont

While it is known that diet can alter the gut microbiota composition by providing the microorganisms with certain nutrients, Townsend et al. (2019) provides an example of how diet can regulate the level of bacterial protein and thereby also controlling gut colonization by a beneficial gut commensal bacterium. This paper explains that fructose, a common dietary additive particularly in the Western World, reduces the number of regulators of gut colonization by the human gut commensal Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron. In mice fed a fructose-rich diet, fructose was shown to confer advantage by lowering the levels of and silencing the colonisation factor. [NPID: sugar, processed food, gut microbiota, gut-brain axis, bacterial protein, gut colonization, gut bacteria, Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron]

Year: 2019

Reference: Townsend, Guy & Han, Weiwei & Schwalm, Nathan & Raghavan, Varsha & Barry, Natasha & Goodman, Andrew & Groisman, Eduardo. (2018). Dietary sugar silences a colonization factor in a mammalian gut symbiont. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116. 201813780. 10.1073/pnas.1813780115.