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Science 25 March 2005:
Vol. 307. no. 5717, pp. 1955 - 1959
DOI: 10.1126/science.1109051
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Reports

Glycan Foraging in Vivo by an Intestine-Adapted Bacterial Symbiont

Justin L. Sonnenburg,1,2 Jian Xu,1,2 Douglas D. Leip,1,2 Chien-Huan Chen,1,2 Benjamin P. Westover,1,3 Jeremy Weatherford,3 Jeremy D. Buhler,1,3 Jeffrey I. Gordon1,2*

Germ-free mice were maintained on polysaccharide-rich or simple-sugar diets and colonized for 10 days with an organism also found in human guts, Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, followed by whole-genome transcriptional profiling of bacteria and mass spectrometry of cecal glycans. We found that these bacteria assembled on food particles and mucus, selectively induced outer-membrane polysaccharide-binding proteins and glycoside hydrolases, prioritized the consumption of liberated hexose sugars, and revealed a capacity to turn to host mucus glycans when polysaccharides were absent from the diet. This flexible foraging behavior should contribute to ecosystem stability and functional diversity.

1 Center for Genome Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63108, USA.
2 Department of Molecular Biology and Pharmacology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63108, USA.
3 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63108, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jgordon{at}molecool.wustl.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)