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      An obesity-associated gut microbiome with increased capacity for energy harvest.

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          Abstract

          The worldwide obesity epidemic is stimulating efforts to identify host and environmental factors that affect energy balance. Comparisons of the distal gut microbiota of genetically obese mice and their lean littermates, as well as those of obese and lean human volunteers have revealed that obesity is associated with changes in the relative abundance of the two dominant bacterial divisions, the Bacteroidetes and the Firmicutes. Here we demonstrate through metagenomic and biochemical analyses that these changes affect the metabolic potential of the mouse gut microbiota. Our results indicate that the obese microbiome has an increased capacity to harvest energy from the diet. Furthermore, this trait is transmissible: colonization of germ-free mice with an 'obese microbiota' results in a significantly greater increase in total body fat than colonization with a 'lean microbiota'. These results identify the gut microbiota as an additional contributing factor to the pathophysiology of obesity.

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          Author and article information

          Journal
          Nature
          Nature
          Springer Science and Business Media LLC
          1476-4687
          0028-0836
          Dec 21 2006
          : 444
          : 7122
          Affiliations
          [1 ] Center for Genome Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63108, USA.
          Article
          nature05414
          10.1038/nature05414
          17183312
          42d05dc6-f470-4143-ab83-61ee5d09ad93
          History

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