Identification and Characterization of Major Bile Acid 7α-Dehydroxylating Bacteria in the Human Gut
Kyung Hyun Kim, Dongbin Park, Baolei Jia, Ju Hye Baek, Yoonsoo Hahn, Che Ok Jeon
Abstract
In this study, we identified a key 7α-dehydroxylating bacterial group predicted to be largely responsible for converting primary bile acids (BAs) to secondary BAs in the human gut through sequence similarity network, genome neighborhood network, and gene abundance analyses using human gut metagenomes. The key bacterial group was phylogenetically quite different from known 7α-dehydroxylating bacteria, and their abundance was highly correlated with the occurrence of diverse diseases associated with bile acid 7α-dehydroxylation. In addition, we characterized the metabolic features of the key bacterial group using their metagenome-assembled genomes. This approach is useful to identify and characterize key gut bacteria highly associated with human health and diseases.