Publications by authors named "Woongjae Yoo"

Inflammation boosts the availability of electron acceptors in the intestinal lumen, creating a favorable niche for pathogenic Enterobacteriaceae. However, the mechanisms linking intestinal inflammation-mediated changes in luminal metabolites and pathogen expansion remain unclear. Here, we show that mucosal inflammation induced by Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S.

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Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second-highest cause of cancer-associated mortality among both men and women worldwide. One of the risk factors for CRC is obesity, which is correlated with a high-fat diet prevalent in Western dietary habits. The association between an obesogenic high-fat diet and CRC has been established for several decades; however, the mechanisms by which a high-fat diet increases the risk of CRC remain unclear.

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The mechanisms by which the early-life microbiota protects against environmental factors that promote childhood obesity remain largely unknown. Using a mouse model in which young mice are simultaneously exposed to antibiotics and a high-fat (HF) diet, we show that Lactobacillus species, predominant members of the small intestine (SI) microbiota, regulate intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) to limit diet-induced obesity during early life. A Lactobacillus-derived metabolite, phenyllactic acid (PLA), protects against metabolic dysfunction caused by early-life exposure to antibiotics and a HF diet by increasing the abundance of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPAR-γ) in SI IECs.

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The gut microbiota benefits the host by limiting enteric pathogen expansion (colonization resistance), partially via the production of inhibitory metabolites. Propionate, a short-chain fatty acid produced by microbiota members, is proposed to mediate colonization resistance against Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Tm).

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The intestine is home to a large and complex bacterial ecosystem (microbiota), which performs multiple beneficial functions for the host, including immune education, nutrition, and protection against invasion by enteric pathogens (colonization resistance). The host and microbiome symbiotic interactions occur in part through metabolic crosstalk. Thus, microbiota members have evolved highly diverse metabolic pathways to inhibit pathogen colonization via activation of protective immune responses and nutrient acquisition and utilization.

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A Western-style, high-fat diet promotes cardiovascular disease, in part because it is rich in choline, which is converted to trimethylamine (TMA) by the gut microbiota. However, whether diet-induced changes in intestinal physiology can alter the metabolic capacity of the microbiota remains unknown. Using a mouse model of diet-induced obesity, we show that chronic exposure to a high-fat diet escalates choline catabolism by altering intestinal epithelial physiology.

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Microbes support their growth in vertebrate hosts by exploiting a large variety of dietary components as nutrients, which determines the composition of gut microbiota. A pathogen expands by utilizing 1,2-propanediol, a microbiota-fermented product, during mucosal inflammation. However, it remains largely unknown how the pathogen decides which nutrient to consume from the complex mixture in the gut.

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Signal transduction systems dictate various cellular behaviors in response to environmental changes. To operate cellular programs appropriately, organisms have sophisticated regulatory factors to optimize the signal response. The PhoP/PhoQ master virulence regulatory system of the intracellular pathogen is activated inside acidic macrophage phagosomes.

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Salmonella enterica serovar (S.) Typhi is an extraintestinal pathogen that evolved from Salmonella serovars causing gastrointestinal disease. Compared with non-typhoidal Salmonella serovars, the genomes of typhoidal serovars contain various loss-of-function mutations.

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Flagellar biogenesis is controlled by a negative feedback loop. When FliD was secreted at the late step of flagellar assembly, the FliD-FliT complex disassembled and free FliT bound to the FlhDC complex, a master regulator of flagellar biogenesis, subsequently inhibiting the overall expression of flagellar proteins. In this study, we analyzed the role of the FliD C-terminal domain in pentamer formation and interaction with FliT.

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Many Proteobacteria possess a nitrogen-metabolic phosphotransferase system (PTS) consisting of EI, NPr, and EIIA (encoded by ptsP, ptsO, and ptsN, respectively). The PTS plays diverse regulatory roles, but the substrate phosphorylated by EIIA and its primary functions have not yet been identified. To comprehensively understand the roles of PTS in Salmonella Typhimurium, we compared the whole transcriptomes of wild-type and a ΔptsN mutant.

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The nitrogen-metabolic phosphotransferase system, PTS(Ntr), consists of the enzymes I(Ntr), NPr and IIA(Ntr) that are encoded by ptsP, ptsO, and ptsN, respectively. Due to the proximity of ptsO and ptsN to rpoN, the PTS(Ntr) system has been postulated to be closely related with nitrogen metabolism. To define the correlation between PTS(Ntr) and nitrogen metabolism, we performed ligand fishing with EIIA(Ntr) as a bait and revealed that D-glucosamine-6-phosphate synthase (GlmS) directly interacted with EIIA(Ntr).

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