A novel, butyrate-producing Gram-positive bacterium from the human gut, Hoskinsella mucinolytica, selectively targets N-acetylhexosamine sugars in host mucins

We used culturing of fecal sample enrichments on solid medium containing gastric mucin as the main carbon source to isolate a novel bacterium that is largely restricted to using the N-acetylglucosamine and N-acetylgalactosamine sugars from mucin. This butyrate-producing bacterium accesses these sugars from both polymeric gastric mucin and chemically released oligosaccharides and has a genome with correspondingly restricted carbohydrate-active enzyme content. Sequencing data was curated to determine gene expression profiles when comparing N-acetylgalactosamine, N-acetylglucosamine, gastric mucin oligosaccharides and cellobiose. Overall design: Hoskinsella mucinolytica DSM116809 was grown in biological replicate cultures to mid-log phase under anaerobic conditions at 37ºC on Depleted Medium (DM) containing either N-acetylgalactosamine, N-acetylglucosamine, gastric mucin oligosaccharides (gMO) or cellobiose. Total RNA was extracted using phenol:chloroform and rRNA was removed. Sequencing of mRNA (RNA-sequencing) analysis was performed to determine differential gene expression among these substrates.