Rationally designed and assembled a Diet based Minimal Microbiome (Db-MM) consisting of ten core gut bacteria that convert dietary fiber to short-chain fatty acids.

Knowledge of the functional roles and inter-species interactions is crucial for modulation of the gut microbiome for health. However, understanding of functional roles and inter-species interactions remains a major challenge due to the complexity and technical limitation in investigating the gut microbiome. We rationally designed and assembled a Diet based Minimal Microbiome (Db-MM) consisting of ten core gut bacteria that convert dietary fiber to short-chain fatty acids. The composition was assessed using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and gene expression by metatranscriptomics.