Isolation of wheat bran-colonizing and metabolizing species from the human fecal microbiota

Isolation of wheat bran-colonizing and metabolizing species from the human fecal microbiota

De Paepe, Kim (Universiteit Gent)
Verspreet, Joran (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; Flemish Institute for Technological Research)
Rezaei, Mohammad Naser (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
Martinez, Silvia Hidalgo (Universiteit Antwerpen)
Meysman, F.J.R. (TU Delft OLD BT/Cell Systems Engineering; TU Delft BT/Environmental Biotechnology; Universiteit Antwerpen)
Van De Walle, Davy (Universiteit Gent)
Dewettinck, Koen (Universiteit Gent)
Raes, Jeroen (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; VIB)
Courtin, Christophe (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
Van De Wiele, Tom (Universiteit Gent)

2019

Undigestible, insoluble food particles, such as wheat bran, are important dietary constituents that serve as a fermentation substrate for the human gut microbiota. The first step in wheat bran fermentation involves the poorly studied solubilization of fibers from the complex insoluble wheat bran structure. Attachment of bacteria has been suggested to promote the efficient hydrolysis of insoluble substrates, but the mechanisms and drivers of this microbial attachment and colonization, as well as subsequent fermentation remain to be elucidated. We have previously shown that an individually dependent subset of gut bacteria is able to colonize the wheat bran residue. Here, we isolated these bran-attached microorganisms, which can then be used to gain mechanistic insights in future pure culture experiments. Four healthy fecal donors were screened to account for inter-individual differences in gut microbiota composition. A combination of a direct plating and enrichment method resulted in the isolation of a phylogenetically diverse set of species, belonging to the Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria phyla. A comparison with 16S rRNA gene sequences that were found enriched on wheat bran particles in previous studies, however, showed that the isolates do not yet cover the entire diversity of wheat-bran colonizing species, comprising among others a broad range of Prevotella, Bacteroides and Clostridium cluster XIVa species. We, therefore, suggest several modifications to the experiment set-up to further expand the array of isolated species.

Enrichment
Human gut microbiota
Insoluble dietary particles
Wheat bran-attached microbiota
Wheat bran-utilizing microbiota

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:82d4998a-310a-43d5-bbc5-2038a68e8489

https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6293

2167-8359

PeerJ, 7 (1)

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2019 Kim De Paepe, Joran Verspreet, Mohammad Naser Rezaei, Silvia Hidalgo Martinez, F.J.R. Meysman, Davy Van De Walle, Koen Dewettinck, Jeroen Raes, Christophe Courtin, Tom Van De Wiele