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Abstract

Non-caloric artificial sweeteners (NAS) are among the most widely used food additives worldwide, regularly consumed by lean and obese individuals alike. NAS consumption is considered safe and beneficial owing to their low caloric content, yet supporting scientific data remain sparse and controversial. Here we demonstrate that consumption of commonly used NAS formulations drives the development of glucose intolerance through induction of compositional and functional alterations to the intestinal microbiota. These NAS-mediated deleterious metabolic effects are abrogated by antibiotic treatment, and are fully transferrable to germ-free mice upon faecal transplantation of microbiota configurations from NAS-consuming mice, or of microbiota anaerobically incubated in the presence of NAS. We identify NAS-altered microbial metabolic pathways that are linked to host susceptibility to metabolic disease, and demonstrate similar NAS-induced dysbiosis and glucose intolerance in healthy human subjects. Collectively, our results link NAS consumption, dysbiosis and metabolic abnormalities, thereby calling for a reassessment of massive NAS usage.

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D-amino acids trigger biofilm disassembly.

Ilana Kolodkin-Gal, Diego Romero, Shugeng Cao … (2010)

Bacteria form communities known as biofilms, which disassemble over time. In our studies outlined here, we found that, before biofilm disassembly, Bacillus subtilis produced a factor that prevented biofilm formation and could break down existing biofilms. The factor was shown to be a mixture of D-leucine, D-methionine, D-tyrosine, and D-tryptophan that could act at nanomolar concentrations. D-amino acid treatment caused the release of amyloid fibers that linked cells in the biofilm together. Mutants able to form biofilms in the presence of D-amino acids contained alterations in a protein (YqxM) required for the formation and anchoring of the fibers to the cell. D-amino acids also prevented biofilm formation by Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. D-amino acids are produced by many bacteria and, thus, may be a widespread signal for biofilm disassembly.

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High-throughput chromatin immunoprecipitation for genome-wide mapping of in vivo protein-DNA interactions and epigenomic states.

Ronnie Blecher-Gonen, Zohar Barnett‐Itzhaki, Diego Jaitin … (2013)

Dynamic protein binding to DNA elements regulates genome function and cell fate. Although methods for mapping in vivo protein-DNA interactions are becoming crucial for every aspect of genomic research, they are laborious and costly, thereby limiting progress. Here we present a protocol for mapping in vivo protein-DNA interactions using a high-throughput chromatin immunoprecipitation (HT-ChIP) approach. By using paramagnetic beads, we streamline the entire ChIP and indexed library construction process: sample transfer and loss is minimized and the need for manually labor-intensive procedures such as washes, gel extraction and DNA precipitation is eliminated. All of this allows for fully automated, cost effective and highly sensitive 96-well ChIP sequencing (ChIP-seq). Sample preparation takes 3 d from cultured cells to pooled libraries. Compared with previous methods, HT-ChIP is more suitable for large-scale in vivo studies, specifically those measuring the dynamics of a large number of different chromatin modifications/transcription factors or multiple perturbations.

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Pathoscope: Species identification and strain attribution with unassembled sequencing data

Owen Francis, Matthew L. Bendall, Solaiappan Manimaran … (2013)

Emerging next-generation sequencing technologies have revolutionized the collection of genomic data for applications in bioforensics, biosurveillance, and for use in clinical settings. However, to make the most of these new data, new methodology needs to be developed that can accommodate large volumes of genetic data in a computationally efficient manner. We present a statistical framework to analyze raw next-generation sequence reads from purified or mixed environmental or targeted infected tissue samples for rapid species identification and strain attribution against a robust database of known biological agents. Our method, Pathoscope , capitalizes on a Bayesian statistical framework that accommodates information on sequence quality, mapping quality, and provides posterior probabilities of matches to a known database of target genomes. Importantly, our approach also incorporates the possibility that multiple species can be present in the sample and considers cases when the sample species/strain is not in the reference database. Furthermore, our approach can accurately discriminate between very closely related strains of the same species with very little coverage of the genome and without the need for multiple alignment steps, extensive homology searches, or genome assembly—which are time-consuming and labor-intensive steps. We demonstrate the utility of our approach on genomic data from purified and in silico “environmental” samples from known bacterial agents impacting human health for accuracy assessment and comparison with other approaches.

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PubMed ID:: 25231862

DOI:: 10.1038/nature13793

ScienceOpen disciplines: Chemistry

Keywords: Animals,Anti-Bacterial Agents,pharmacology,Aspartame,adverse effects,Body Weight,drug effects,Diet, High-Fat,Dietary Fats,Feces,microbiology,Female,Gastrointestinal Tract,Germ-Free Life,Glucose,metabolism,Glucose Intolerance,chemically induced,Humans,Male,Metabolic Syndrome X,Mice,Mice, Inbred C57BL,Microbiota,Saccharin,administration & dosage,Sucrose,analogs & derivatives,Sweetening Agents,Waist-Hip Ratio

Artificial sweeteners induce glucose intolerance by altering the gut microbiota.

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Abstract

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Most cited references 9

D-amino acids trigger biofilm disassembly.

High-throughput chromatin immunoprecipitation for genome-wide mapping of in vivo protein-DNA interactions and epigenomic states.

Pathoscope: Species identification and strain attribution with unassembled sequencing data

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