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Abstract
<p id="P4">Interest in manipulating the gut microbiota to treat disease has led to
a need for
understanding how organisms can establish themselves when introduced into a host with
an intact microbial community. Here, we employ the concept of orthogonal niche engineering:
a resource typically absent from the diet, seaweed, creates a customized niche for
an introduced organism. In the short term, co-introduction of this resource at 1%
in the diet along with an organism with exclusive access to this resource,
<i>Bacteroides plebeius</i> DSM 17135, enables it to colonize at a median abundance
of 1%, and frequently up
to 10 or more percent, both on pulsed and constant seaweed diets. In a two-month follow-up
after the initial treatment period,
<i>B. plebeius</i> stops responding to seaweed in mice initially on the constant seaweed
diet, suggesting
treatment regime will affect controllability. These results offer potential for diet-based
intervention to introduce and control target organisms.
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