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An insider's perspective: Bacteroides as a window into the microbiome

Nature Microbiology volume 2, Article number: 17026 (2017) Cite this article

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Abstract

Over the last decade, our appreciation for the contribution of resident gut microorganisms—the gut microbiota—to human health has surged. However, progress is limited by the sheer diversity and complexity of these microbial communities. Compounding the challenge, the majority of our commensal microorganisms are not close relatives of Escherichia coli or other model organisms and have eluded culturing and manipulation in the laboratory. In this Review, we discuss how over a century of study of the readily cultured, genetically tractable human gut Bacteroides has revealed important insights into the biochemistry, genomics and ecology that make a gut bacterium a gut bacterium. While genome and metagenome sequences are being produced at breakneck speed, the Bacteroides provide a significant ‘jump-start’ on uncovering the guiding principles that govern microbiota–host and inter-bacterial associations in the gut that will probably extend to many other members of this ecosystem.

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Figure 1: Global distributions and abundances of human gut microorganisms at the phylum and genus levels.
Figure 2: Consumption and production of polysaccharides in Bacteroides.
Figure 3: Commensal colonization of colonic crypts.
Figure 4: Mechanisms of inter-bacterial cooperation and antagonism among Bacteroides.

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Acknowledgements

We thank W. Schofield and B. Lim for careful reading of the manuscript. Support for this work was provided by the National Institutes of Health (GM105456 and GM118159), the Pew Scholars Program, and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund to A.L.G. A.G.W. is supported by a fellowship from the Gruber Foundation.

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  1. Department of Microbial Pathogenesis, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, 06510, Connecticut, USA

    Aaron G. Wexler & Andrew L. Goodman

  2. Microbial Sciences Institute, Yale University School of Medicine, West Haven, 06516, Connecticut, USA

    Aaron G. Wexler & Andrew L. Goodman

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  1. Aaron G. Wexler
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A.G.W. drafted the manuscript and prepared figures. A.G.W. and A.L.G. edited the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Andrew L. Goodman.

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Wexler, A., Goodman, A. An insider's perspective: Bacteroides as a window into the microbiome. Nat Microbiol 2, 17026 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmicrobiol.2017.26

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