TY - JOUR
T1 - Mucin glycans drive oral microbial community composition and function
AU - Wu, Chloe M.
AU - Wheeler, Kelsey M.
AU - Cárcamo-Oyarce, Gerardo
AU - Aoki, Kazuhiro
AU - McShane, Abigail
AU - Datta, Sujit S.
AU - Mark Welch, Jessica L.
AU - Tiemeyer, Michael
AU - Griffen, Ann L.
AU - Ribbeck, Katharina
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by funding from the NIBIB/NIH award R01-EB017755 (to K.R.), the National Science Foundation Career award PHY1454673 (to K.R.), the National Science Foundation grant nos. EF-2125118, EF-2124863, and EF-2125132, the U.S. Army Research Office under cooperative agreement W911NF-19-2-0026 for the Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies, the Army Research Office MURI award W911NF2210185, the NIEHS/NIH grant no. P30-ES002109 (to the MIT BioMicro Center), and the NSF GRFP grant no. 1745302 (to K.M.W., C.M.W., and A.MS.). The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the Army Research Office or the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Government purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation herein. We thank Kristi Hatch and the Science Editors Network for editing assistance and members of the Ribbeck lab for advice and support.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s).
PY - 2023/12
Y1 - 2023/12
N2 - Human microbiome composition is closely tied to health, but how the host manages its microbial inhabitants remains unclear. One important, but understudied, factor is the natural host environment: mucus, which contains gel-forming glycoproteins (mucins) that display hundreds of glycan structures with potential regulatory function. Leveraging a tractable culture-based system to study how mucins influence oral microbial communities, we found that mucin glycans enable the coexistence of diverse microbes, while resisting disease-associated compositional shifts. Mucins from tissues with unique glycosylation differentially tuned microbial composition, as did isolated mucin glycan libraries, uncovering the importance of specific glycan patterns in microbiome modulation. We found that mucins shape microbial communities in several ways: serving as nutrients to support metabolic diversity, organizing spatial structure through reduced aggregation, and possibly limiting antagonism between competing taxa. Overall, this work identifies mucin glycans as a natural host mechanism and potential therapeutic intervention to maintain healthy microbial communities.
AB - Human microbiome composition is closely tied to health, but how the host manages its microbial inhabitants remains unclear. One important, but understudied, factor is the natural host environment: mucus, which contains gel-forming glycoproteins (mucins) that display hundreds of glycan structures with potential regulatory function. Leveraging a tractable culture-based system to study how mucins influence oral microbial communities, we found that mucin glycans enable the coexistence of diverse microbes, while resisting disease-associated compositional shifts. Mucins from tissues with unique glycosylation differentially tuned microbial composition, as did isolated mucin glycan libraries, uncovering the importance of specific glycan patterns in microbiome modulation. We found that mucins shape microbial communities in several ways: serving as nutrients to support metabolic diversity, organizing spatial structure through reduced aggregation, and possibly limiting antagonism between competing taxa. Overall, this work identifies mucin glycans as a natural host mechanism and potential therapeutic intervention to maintain healthy microbial communities.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41522-023-00378-4
DO - 10.1038/s41522-023-00378-4
M3 - Article
C2 - 36959210
AN - SCOPUS:85150885000
SN - 2055-5008
VL - 9
JO - npj Biofilms and Microbiomes
JF - npj Biofilms and Microbiomes
IS - 1
M1 - 11
ER -