Home sweet home: Mucin glycan-driven interactions in synthetic communities of human gut microbes

Summary

This thesis researches the microbes that inhabit the protective layer that covers the human gut epithelial cells. This layer is primarily composed of mucin sugars. I investigated how gut microbes can adapt to grow on these sugars and how they work together to break them down. I did this by creating and applying a synthetic mucin-degrading community of microbes – a carefully selected collection of microbes that represents a real-life microbial community. By cultivating this synthetic community on mucin sugars, I showed that microbes cooperate to degrade mucin sugars and discovered that this interaction leads to the production of compounds that are beneficial for human health. Furthermore, this thesis reveals how microbes differ in their affinity for specific mucin sugars, which shapes their abundance and function in a community. Specialist mucin sugar degrader Akkermansia muciniphila plays a central role in this work, highlighting its exceptional affinity for mucin sugars.