Importance in The Human Gut
The human gut microbiota consist of three main groups of hydrogen consuming microbes: methanogens including M. smithii, a polyphyletic group of acetogens, and sulfate-reducing bacteria. Defining the roles of these microbes is significant to understanding how hydrogen metabolism affects the efficiency of fermentation of dietary components. Accumulation of hydrogen in the gut reduces the efficiency of microbial fermentation as well as the yield of energy. Methanogenic archaea are particularly significant for the human gut because they are pivotal in the removal of excess hydrogen from the human gut. M. smithii is the most common methanogenic archaeon in the human gut microbiota. Although M. smithii is paramount in digestive processes, it has a low prevalence in human stool.
The human gut microbiota is dominated by Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes. Archaea are most prominently represented by the methanogenic M. smithii. M. smithii is believed to be a therapeutic target for manipulation and an adaptation to the gut ecosystem.
M. smithii has significant enrichment of genes involved in the utilization of CO2, H2, and formate for methanogenesis. It also has an intact pathway to allow for CO2 utilization gene cluster for the methanogenic consumption of B. thetaiotaomicron-produced metabolite.
M. smithii supports methanogenic and nonmethanogenic removal of diverse bacterial end products of fermentation.
The dominant archaeon in the human gut ecosystem affects the specificity and efficiency of bacterial digestion of dietary polysaccharides. This influences the person’s calorie harvest and body fat. Researchers have sequenced M. smithii genome, indicating that M. smithii may be a therapeutic target for reducing energy harvest in obese humans.
Read more about this topic: Methanobrevibacter Smithii
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