Suggested alternative starch utilization system from the human gut bacterium <i>Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron</i>
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The human digestive system is host to a highly populated ecosystem of bacterial species that significantly contributes to our assimilation of dietary carbohydrates. Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron is a member of this ecosystem, and participates largely in the role of the gut microbiome by breaking down dietary complex carbohydrates. This process of acquiring glycans from the colon lumen is predicted to rely on the mechanisms of proteins that are part of a classified system known as polysaccharide utilization loci (PUL). These loci are responsible for binding substrates at the cell outer membrane, internalizing them, and then hydrolyzing them within the periplasm into simple sugars. Here we report our investigation into specific components of a PUL, and suggest an alternative starch utilization system in B. thetaiotaomicron. Our analysis of an outer membrane binding protein, a SusD homolog, highlights its contribution to this PUL by acquiring starch-based sugars from the colon lumen. Through our structural characterization of two Family GH31 α-glucosidases, we reveal the flexibility of this bacterium with respect to utilizing a range of starch-derived glycans with an emphasis on branched substrates. With these results we demonstrate the predicted function of a gene locus that is capable of contributing to starch hydrolysis in the human colon.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".