Pathogen elimination by probiotic Bacillus via signalling interference

Abstract

Probiotic nutrition is frequently claimed to improve human health. In particular, live probiotic bacteria obtained with food are believed to reduce pathogen colonization and thus, susceptibility to infection. However, the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, we report that the consumption of probiotic Bacillus bacteria comprehensively abolishes colonization with the dangerous pathogen, Staphylococcus aureus . We discovered that the widespread fengycin class of Bacillus lipopeptides achieves colonization resistance by inhibiting the S. aureus Agr quorum-sensing signaling system. Our study presents a detailed molecular mechanism underlining the importance of probiotic nutrition in reducing infectious disease. Notably, we provide human evidence supporting the biological significance of probiotic bacterial interference and show for the first time that such interference can be achieved by blocking a pathogen’s signaling system. Furthermore, our findings suggest a probiotic-based method for S. aureus decolonization and new ways to fight S. aureus infections.

Positive effects of dietary supplementation of three probiotics on milk yield, milk composition and intestinal flora in Sannan dairy goats varied in kind of probiotics

“…Intestinal microbiota affect the nutrient utilization efficiency, health and production characteristics of host animals (Kritas, Govaris, Christodoulopoulos, & Burriel, 2010;Wang, Jin, Xue, Wang, & Peng, 2019). In particular, live probiotic bacteria are thought to have many positive impacts on animal health, such as reducing susceptibility to pathogen infection (Piewngam et al, 2018), increasing body weight (Hu et al, 2019), improving the digestibility coefficients of nutrients (Bhatt, Sahoo, Karim, & Gadekar, 2016) and increasing feed intake (Du et al, 2018). For dairy livestock, these factors all act on lactation directly or indirectly.…”

Role of Bacillus species in biofilm persistence and emerging antibiofilm strategies in the dairy industry

“…Extracellular matrix production and the formation of beneficial biofilms can benefit the health of different host organisms . They can also be crucial for industrial processes such as wastewater treatment or food fermentation .…”

“…5,10 Extracellular matrix production and the formation of beneficial biofilms can benefit the health of different host organisms. [11][12][13][14] They can also be crucial for industrial processes such as wastewater treatment or food fermentation. 15,16 However, biofilms are often detrimental in a broad range of areas, and specifically in the food, environmental, and biomedical fields.…”

Control of density and composition in an engineered two-member bacterial community

“…Microbiome research is diving deeper and deeper into microbial communities and continues to uncover new important roles for humans' resident microbes in normal physiology. Recent work has provided mechanistic explanations for previously reported correlations between microbiome composition and disease states [1][2][3][4]; limited attempts to therapeutically alter or supplement microbiome composition have proven highly effective for altering microbiomes and treating disease [5,6]. Clearly, it is in our interest to understand mechanisms that can control the composition of our microbiomes so we might precisely engineer them for health in the future.…”