Microbiota articles from across Nature Portfolio

Commensal microbes contribute considerably to mammalian metabolism. Here the authors report the relative contributions of microbiome, age and sex to metabolism throughout the body and uncover age- and sex- specificity in how microbes affect metabolite levels in mice.

Taxon-specific primary metabolic pathways are identified using profile hidden Markov models.

The authors provide evidence in mice and humans showing that parenteral nutrition impairs glucose and insulin homeostasis by altering the gut microbiota and its metabolites.

Dietary glycans are a major driver of the human gut microbiota composition. Here, the authors apply next-generation metabolic labeling coupled with fluorescence-activated cell sorting to identify and isolate gut bacteria consumers of dietary glycans in human stool samples, linking bacteria to the glycans they consume.

This Review outlines evidence that the gut microbiota is involved in regulating body weight homeostasis. In addition, the opportunities, limitations and challenges of using gut microbiota-related approaches as a means to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight in people with overweight or obesity are discussed.

A metagenomic analysis reveals that male and female mice exhibit sex-dependent responses to a high-fat diet (HFD), and that estrogenic ligands can attenuate certain aspects of HFDinduced dysbiosis.