INSTITUTE OF FOOD RESEARCH, KATHRYN CROSS AND NIKKI HORN
Mammalian hosts fight gut infections in part by releasing antimicrobial peptides that disrupt bacterial membranes. But it has been unclear how beneficial microbes survive the release of these peptides and maintain stable populations in the gut. One major group of commensal gut bacteria, the Bacteroidetes, avoids becoming collateral damage with just one gene, which encodes an enzyme that modifies lipopolysaccharides (LPS) in their cell membranes, according to a paper published today (January 8) in Science.
“Many aspects of the immune response target microbial features generally, not specific factors that only are found on pathogens,” said study coauthor Andy Goodman, an assistant professor in the department of microbial pathogenesis at Yale University School of Medicine. “We didn’t understand how you could have a host response that ...
