Menu
July 7, 2019  |  

Genome-guided design of a defined mouse microbiota that confers colonization resistance against Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium.

Authors: Brugiroux, Sandrine and Beutler, Markus and Pfann, Carina and Garzetti, Debora and Ruscheweyh, Hans-Joachim and Ring, Diana and Diehl, Manuel and Herp, Simone and Lötscher, Yvonne and Hussain, Saib and Bunk, Boyke and Pukall, Rüdiger and Huson, Daniel H and Münch, Philipp C and McHardy, Alice C and McCoy, Kathy D and Macpherson, Andrew J and Loy, Alexander and Clavel, Thomas and Berry, David and Stecher, Bärbel

Protection against enteric infections, also termed colonization resistance, results from mutualistic interactions of the host and its indigenous microbes. The gut microbiota of humans and mice is highly diverse and it is therefore challenging to assign specific properties to its individual members. Here, we have used a collection of murine bacterial strains and a modular design approach to create a minimal bacterial community that, once established in germ-free mice, provided colonization resistance against the human enteric pathogen Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Tm). Initially, a community of 12 strains, termed Oligo-Mouse-Microbiota (Oligo-MM(12)), representing members of the major bacterial phyla in the murine gut, was selected. This community was stable over consecutive mouse generations and provided colonization resistance against S. Tm infection, albeit not to the degree of a conventional complex microbiota. Comparative (meta)genome analyses identified functions represented in a conventional microbiome but absent from the Oligo-MM(12). By genome-informed design, we created an improved version of the Oligo-MM community harbouring three facultative anaerobic bacteria from the mouse intestinal bacterial collection (miBC) that provided conventional-like colonization resistance. In conclusion, we have established a highly versatile experimental system that showed efficacy in an enteric infection model. Thus, in combination with exhaustive bacterial strain collections and systems-based approaches, genome-guided design can be used to generate insights into microbe-microbe and microbe-host interactions for the investigation of ecological and disease-relevant mechanisms in the intestine.

Journal: Nature microbiology
DOI: 10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.215
Year: 2016

Read publication

Talk with an expert

If you have a question, need to check the status of an order, or are interested in purchasing an instrument, we're here to help.