Health-associated key gut microbiota drives the variation in community metabolic interactions in non-human primates
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Gut microbiota often undergo metabolic cross-feeding and resource competition. However, our understanding of global variations in these interactions and their implications for host health remain elusive. By analyzing a microbial genome catalog from 841 fecal metagenomes across 53 primate species worldwide, we identified key microbiota assigned to two taxa, i.e., Bacillota_A and Pseudomonadota, which well predicted the trade-off of community-level interaction types between metabolic competition and cooperation. Specifically, Bacillota_A species were inherently competitive and amino acid auxotrophic and typically found in anaerobic habitats. In contrast, members of Pseudomonadota were inherently cooperative, siderophore producers, and more abundant in aerobic conditions. Random forest models successfully distinguished unhealthy gut samples from healthy samples through the key competitive and cooperative microbiota, suggesting potential links between community metabolic interactions and host health. Together, this study enhances our mechanistic understanding of microbial interaction dynamism within complex gut ecosystems, offering new targets for understanding host health.
Source: Cell Reports
Institutions: Sun Yat-sen University, German Primate Center
Language: English
Topic: Gut microbiota and health
Subfield: Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $5,620
Funders: National Natural Science Foundation of China, Sun Yat-sen University, Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China, Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, National Key Research and Development Program of China, Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province
OpenAlex ID: W4415534006