Abstract
The microbial communities that colonize the human large intestine can influence many aspects of health and Bacillota strains, in particular, have been proposed as next-generation probiotics. Of note are strains including fibre-degraders, butyrate producers, lactate producers and utilizers, and other beneficial metabolic activities that are important for health. To illustrate the potential applications of colonic bacteria to design novel prebiotic formulations, a comparative genomics analysis of 16 bacterial strains isolated from the human gut was performed. This analysis revealed a high number of carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) in the genome sequences of understudied Lachnospiraceae and Oscillospiraceae members including Roseburia intestinalis L1-82, Roseburia faecis M72/1, Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens 16-4, and Ruminococcus bicirculans 80/3, ranging from 32 to 56 CAZymes across different strains. These strains showed complementary enzymatic profiles covering a wide range of different activities required to degrade prebiotic substrates derived from vegetable sources such as arabino- and xylo-oligosaccharides and pectic-oligosaccharides. These metabolic differences highlight the potential of these strains to cross feed and to allow the design novel probiotic consortia for microbiota-oriented interventions that could target specific disease conditions. These bacterial strains are, however, strict anaerobes and therefore special measures may need to be put in place to overcome these limitations.