Gut Bacteria Missing in Severe Acute Malnutrition, Can We Identify Potential Probiotics by Culturomics?

Severe acute malnutrition is the world-leading cause of children under-five's death. Recent metagenomics studies have established a link between gut microbiota and severe acute malnutrition, describing an immaturity with a striking depletion in oxygen-sensitive prokaryotes. Amoxicillin and therapeutic diet cure most of the children with severe acute malnutrition but an irreversible disruption of the gut microbiota is suspected in the refractory and most severe cases.

Culture of previously uncultured members of the human gut microbiota by culturomics.

Metagenomics revolutionized the understanding of the relations among the human microbiome, health and diseases, but generated a countless number of sequences that have not been assigned to a known microorganism. The pure culture of prokaryotes, neglected in recent decades, remains essential to elucidating the role of these organisms. We recently introduced microbial culturomics, a culturing approach that uses multiple culture conditions and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight and 16S rRNA for identification.

Microvirga massiliensis sp. nov., the human commensal with the largest genome.

Microvirga massiliensis sp. nov. strain JC119(T) is a bacteria isolated in Marseille from a stool sample collected in Senegal.