Ecological niche assignment in the gut microbiome on an ecosystem-level scale

项目总结 肠道微生物群由数百种微生物组成，它们生活在人类胃肠道和 以多种方式影响宿主的健康。不同的微生物通过专攻不同的细菌在肠道中共存 共同产生具有紧急功能的复杂微生物生态系统的定居策略 属性。尽管专门的生态作用在解释组成和 微生物群的功能，大多数肠道微生物采用的定植策略仍然很差 已定义。拟议的研究将采取两种方法来广泛地将殖民战略分配给不同的 肠道微生物。拟议项目的第一部分将使用比较基因组分析来确定 已建立的微生物功能在肠道微生物群中的分布并指导新的发现 殖民战略。该项目的第二部分将利用无偏见的增长分析来确定 微生物群落适应不同的定居策略。鉴定的分子基础 殖民策略将通过遗传和生化的应用进一步被询问。 接近了。通过将生态环境分配给肠道微生物区系的不同成员，这些研究将 促进对肠道生态系统的基本了解，这可能有助于诊断和治疗的发展 基于微生物组的治疗性技术。

PROJECT SUMMARY The gut microbiome comprises hundreds of microbial species that inhabit the human gastrointestinal tract and impact host health in a myriad of ways. Diverse microbes coexist in the gut by specializing in distinct colonization strategies which collectively give rise to a complex microbial ecosystem with emergent functional properties. Despite the critical nature of the specialized ecological roles in explaining the composition and function of the microbiome, colonization strategies employed by the majority of gut microbes remains poorly defined. The proposed research will take two approaches to broadly assign colonization strategies to diverse gut microbes. A first part of the proposed project will employ comparative genome analyses to determine the distribution of established microbial functions across the gut microbiome and to guide the discovery of novel colonization strategies. A second part of the project will utilize unbiased growth assays to identify members of the microbial community adapted for diverse colonization strategies. The molecular basis of identified colonization strategies will be further interrogated through the application of genetic and biochemical approaches. By assigning ecological context to diverse members of the gut microbiota, these studies will advance a basic understanding of the gut ecosystem that could benefit the development of diagnostic and therapeutic microbiome-based technologies.