Species in the Genus Bifidobacterium

Varied Pathways of Infant Gut-Associated Bifidobacterium to Assimilate Human Milk Oligosaccharides: Prevalence of the Gene Set and Its Correlation with Bifidobacteria-Rich Microbiota Formation

“…Bifidobacteria are gram-positive anaerobes that inhabit animal digestive tracts and dairy products, with 78 species and 10 subspecies taxonomically identified to date (a total of 84 taxa) [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. More than ten (sub)species were isolated from human stools, and among them, six (sub)species are known to be frequent colonizers of infant guts (described later) [1,[12][13][14]. Bifidobacterium is generally the most abundant taxon of the infant gut microbiota (up to 90%), and the richness is associated with various beneficial effects on infant health, that include folate production in the intestines [15], increased immune responses to vaccinations [16], and prevention or reduction of allergic diseases [17].…”

A reverse metabolic approach to weaning: in silico identification of immune-beneficial infant gut bacteria, mining their metabolism for prebiotic feeds and sourcing these feeds in the natural product space

“…longum ( p = 0.0027). The metabolic enrichment analysis confirmed the role of essential compounds (see Additional file 4 ) in vitamin B and amino acid metabolism as growth factors for the selected microbial community of 18 probiotics [ 31 , 32 ].…”

“…Other substrates used as prebiotics include fibers, cellulose, hemicellulose, pectins, gums, β-glucans, inulin, fructose-oligosaccharides, and galacto-oligosaccharides [ 42 ]. In addition to these prebiotics, specific growth factors are also required by gut microbes, such as B vitamins and amino acids, essential for both bifidobacteria [ 31 ] and lactobacilli [ 32 ]. The metabolic pathway enrichment analysis shows that most of the exogenous metabolites identified for lactobacilli and bifidobacteria belong to vitamin B and amino acid pathways.…”

Integrating the Ecosystem Services Framework to Define Dysbiosis of the Breastfed Infant Gut: The Role of B. infantis and Human Milk Oligosaccharides

“…Within the genus bifidobacteria, only B. infantis encodes the complete set of genes required to transport, and intracellularly deconstruct and metabolize all the chemical structures found among HMOs (65), thus indicating maintenance of these genes is under strong selection. Indeed, since its discovery, B. infantis has so far been exclusively found in association with human beings (94) and phylogenetic analysis indicates humans and bifidobacteria have co-speciated (95). Taken together, the association of B. infantis and the breastfed infant host presents strong characteristics of an exclusive symbiotic alliance that has persisted over evolutionary timescales, whereby the human host requires the symbiont to access a significant portion of its diet (i.e., HMOs), while concurrently the symbiont benefits from the nutritional niche provided by the host.…”