GSE26687
Predicting a human gut microbiota's response to diet in gnotobiotic mice.
The interrelationships between our diets and the structure and operations of our gut microbial communities are poorly understood. A model microbial community of ten sequenced human gut bacteria was introduced into gnotobiotic mice and changes in the abundance of each species were measured in response to randomized perturbations of four defined ingredients in the host diet. From the responses, we developed a statistical model that predicted over 50% of the variation in species abundance in response to the diet perturbations and were able to identify which factors in the diet best explained the changes seen for each community member.  The community's transcriptional response was driven by the absolute abundance of each species, as diet ingredient concentrations were not associated with significant changes in the transcription of individual community members. Overall design: This Series contains both RNA-Seq Samples and COPRO-Seq (COmmunity PROfiling by sequencing) Samples.