Publications by authors named "Amanda N D Adams"

The optimal vaginal microbiome is a Lactobacillus-dominant community. Apart from Lactobacillus iners, the presence of Lactobacillus species is associated with reduced vaginal inflammation and reduced levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Loss of Lactobacillus-dominance is associated with inflammatory conditions, such as bacterial vaginosis (BV).

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Article Synopsis
  • Unlabelled species thrive in the human colon by using enzymes from polysaccharide utilization loci (PULs) to break down complex carbohydrates, particularly those that humans can't digest.
  • This study specifically investigates how two types of mutations enhance the ability of these species to use raffinose family oligosaccharides (RFOs), found in many plants, by increasing the expression of key genes.
  • Understanding these mechanisms is crucial as the gut microbiome plays a significant role in human health, influencing how these microbes compete for nutrients in a highly competitive environment.
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species are successful colonizers of the human gut and can utilize a wide variety of complex polysaccharides and oligosaccharides that are indigestible by the host. To do this, they use enzymes encoded in Polysaccharide Utilization Loci (PULs). While recent work has uncovered the PULs required for use of some polysaccharides, how utilize smaller oligosaccharides is less well studied.

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Human gut microbiome composition is constantly changing, and diet is a major driver of these changes. Gut microbial species that persist in mammalian hosts for long periods of time must possess mechanisms for sensing and adapting to nutrient shifts to avoid being outcompeted. Global regulatory mechanisms mediated by RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) that govern responses to nutrient shifts have been characterized in and but remain undiscovered in the .

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