Analysis of bifidobacterial evolution using a multilocus approach

Abstract

Bifidobacteria represent one of the most numerous groups of bacteria found in the gastrointestinal tract of humans and animals. In man, gastrointestinal bifidobacteria are associated with health effects and for this reason they are often used as functional ingredients in food and pharmaceutical products. Such applications may benefit from or require a clear and reliable bifidobacterial species identification. The increasing number of available bacterial genome sequences has provided a large amount of housekeeping gene sequences that can be used both for identification of bifidobacterial species as well as for understanding bifidobacterial evolution. In order to assess their relative positions in the evolutionary process, fragments from seven conserved genes, clpC, dnaB, dnaG, dnaJ1, purF, rpoC and xfp, were sequenced from each of the currently described type strains of the genus Bifidobacterium. The results demonstrate that the concatenation of these seven gene sequences for phylogenetic purposes allows a significant increase in the discriminatory power between taxa.

Microbiomic analysis of the bifidobacterial population in the human distal gut

“…It should also be noted that of the 1312 clone sequences, 136 clones were shown to belong to other bacterial taxa (Propionibacterium, Bacteroides and Firmicutes), which suggests that the LM3 and LM26 Bifidobacterium genus-specific PCR primers are not as efficient in exclusively identifying bifidobacteria as described earlier by Kaufmann et al, 1997. The relative abundances of different bifidobacterial phylogenetic groups presented in each clone library are shown in Figure 3. Such phylogenetic groups were designed in accordance with the earlier described clusters of bifidobacterial taxa, which are based on 16S rRNA gene similarities (Ventura et al, 2006). Phylogenetic analysis of sequences showed that the bifidobacterial composition was dominated by sequences closely related to the B. pseudolongum (including B. pseudolongum species), B. longum (harboring B. longum subsp.…”

Bifidobacterium aesculapii sp. nov., from the faeces of the baby common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus)

“…For this reason, the phylogenetic location of the novel strains was verified by analysis of three additional phylogenetic markers, hsp60, clpC and rpoB, which have proven to be discriminative for classification of the genus Bifidobacterium (Jian et al, 2001;Ventura et al, 2006;Kim et al, 2010).…”

Multi-Loci Gene Sequencing and Identification of Bifidobacteria Strains Isolated from Dairy and Pharmaceutical Sources in South Africa

“…The species and strains used as probiotics mostly belong to the genera Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium (Vasconcelos et al, 2014). More than 30 Bifidobacterium species are known, some of which occur naturally in the human gastrointestinal tract (GIT) (Ventura et al, 2006). Bifidobacteria are the most predominant in the digestive tract of infants, while in adults a third of the intestinal bacterial population comprises bifidobacteria (Ventura et al, 2005;Buruleanu et al 2012).…”

“…Bifidobacteria are the most predominant in the digestive tract of infants, while in adults a third of the intestinal bacterial population comprises bifidobacteria (Ventura et al, 2005;Buruleanu et al 2012). Several prophylactic and therapeutic health benefits in humans have been attributed to the existence of probiotic Bifidobacterium species and other probiotic species in the GIT (Ventura et al, 2005;Ventura et al, 2006;Delétoile et al, 2010;Kim et al, 2012;Buruleanu et al 2012;Sadaghdar et al, 2012). On the basis of such effects, bifidobacteria are increasingly being incorporated in probiotic beverages and supplements (Chang et al, 2010;Koh et al, 2014;Vasconcelos et al, 2014).…”