Department of Biological Sciences, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02481, USA.
Nutrients. 2021 Aug 18;13(8):2833. doi: 10.3390/nu13082833.
subsp. () is one of a few microorganisms capable of metabolizing human breast milk and is a pioneer colonizer in the guts of breastfed infants. One current challenge is differentiating from its close relatives, and . All three organisms are classified in the same species group but only can metabolize human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs). We compared HMO-metabolizing genes across different genomes and developed -specific primers to determine if the genes alone or the primers can be used to quickly characterize . We showed that is uniquely identified by the presence of five HMO-metabolizing gene clusters, tested for its prevalence in infant gut metagenomes, and validated the results using the -specific primers. We observed that only 15 of 203 (7.4%) children under 2 years old from a cohort of US children harbored . These results highlight the importance of developing and improving approaches to identify . A more accurate characterization may provide insights into regional differences of prevalence in infant gut microbiota.
（）亚种是少数几种能够代谢人乳的微生物之一，也是母乳喂养婴儿肠道中最早定植的微生物。目前的一个挑战是区分与其近亲（）和（）。这三种生物都被归类在同一个物种组中，但只有能够代谢人乳寡糖（HMOs）。我们比较了不同（）基因组中的 HMO 代谢基因，并开发了针对的引物，以确定这些基因本身或引物是否可用于快速表征。我们表明，存在五个 HMO 代谢基因簇可唯一识别，检测了其在婴儿肠道宏基因组中的流行程度，并使用特异性引物验证了结果。我们发现，在来自美国儿童的队列中，只有 203 名 2 岁以下儿童中的 15 名（7.4%）携带。这些结果强调了开发和改进识别方法的重要性。更准确的特征描述可能会深入了解婴儿肠道微生物群中流行率的区域差异。
