Pleased to share that our lab was recently featured in a great piece, highlighting our work on understanding the gut microbiome. Huge thanks to the Inside the Lab team for putting this together and for capturing the essence of what drives our research.

RT @cellhostmicrobe: Methylglyoxal: antibacterial effector. Methylglyoxal produced by infected macrophages upon transition to aerobic glyco….

RT @CeciMGLab: Very excited to advertise the work of Charli in my lab!.

RT @NatureMicrobiol: Out Now! An expanded metabolic pathway for androgen production by commensal bacteria #Androgen….

RT @abaumler: 🔬🦠 How to make sense of the taxonomic complexity & interpersonal variability of the gut microbiota? We propose that beneath t….

9/ Huge thanks to the team here at the @UChicago Duchossois Family Institute and especially Deepti and Aga for taking project lead!.

8/🧬 Takeaway:.Extracellular DNA isn’t just genetic material—it’s a nutrient in the gut ecosystem. And bacteria have evolved sophisticated systems to use it. Could these pathways influence host physiology? That’s the next big question.

7/ We also identified four distinct ddb subtypes, each with a unique DNA-depleting profile. These systems are functionally diverse and mutually exclusive across strains. These results suggest there is still a lot to learn about why and how gut bacteria process DNA.

6/ 📊 Comparative genomics reveals:.ddbABCDEF is widespread in gut Bacteroidales. It resembles both:.🔹 Natural transformation systems.🔹 Polysaccharide utilization loci (PULs). Suggestive of an interesting evolutionary history.

5/ 🐭 In gnotobiotic mice:.We find strains with ddbABCDEF produce higher levels of xanthine and uracil in the gut. These nucleobases can act as bioactive metabolites, with potential effects on immunity and gut barrier function.

4/ 🧪 Knockout studies show:.Deleting ddbABCDEF blocks DNA degradation and or uptake. Complementation restores the function, demonstrating that he gene cluster is necessary for exogenous DNA metabolism.

3/ We identify a novel gene cluster, ddbABCDEF, in Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron. This locus encodes multiple secreted nucleases and a TonB-dependent outer membrane transporter, resembling established loci involved in macronutrient breakdown and uptake in Bacteroidales.

2/ The gut is full of microbial life—but also free-floating DNA from food, dead cells, and the host. What happens to that DNA? 🤔. We found that certain gut bacteria can break it down and turn it into metabolites that may affect host physiology.

1/ New preprint! We discovered that Bacteroidales in the gut microbiome can metabolize exogenous DNA 🧬 —turning genetic material into usable nutrients. “DNA-utilization loci enable exogenous DNA metabolism in gut Bacteroidales”.👉

RT @kvnforsberg: My lab’s first preprint!. We used functional metagenomics to identify phage defenses in human and soil microbiomes. We sca….

RT @blekhman: Today we report a compendium of human gut microbiomes with >168,000 samples. We discovered distinct microbiome patterns acros….

RT @mfgrp: Today we report that an engineered skin bacterium, swabbed gently on the head of a mouse, can unleash a potent antibody response….

RT @NatureMicrobiol: OUT NOW 👉Enteric bacterial infection stimulates remodelling of bile metabolites to promote intestinal homeostasis http….

RT @laurenpalmerphd: THRILLED to share our recent work on dietary zinc deficiency worsening Acinetobacter baumannii pneumonia, out today @S….