Bifidobacteriaceae diversity in the human microbiome from a large-scale genome-wide analysis
Open accessAbstract
We performed a large-scale genome-wide analysis aiming to investigate the prevalence and strain-level diversity of Bifidobacteriaceae species in the human microbiome. We considered 9,528 publicly available human metagenomes and integrated them with 1,192 isolate genomes from different sources. The prevalence and abundance of Bifidobacteriaceae species in humans was linked to multiple host characteristics: they were reduced in older people and enriched in populations characterized by Westernized lifestyles with geography-specific patterns. Phylogenetic analysis highlighted 110 Bifidobacteriaceae species-level genome bins (SGBs), with 32 found in humans and 8 in food and probiotic sources. Functional annotation revealed a great diversity in carbohydrate-active enzyme families across these SGBs. We found potential subspecies for most of the SGBs prevalent in humans and identified patterns driven by age and geography. We provided evidence that strains used in probiotics were rarely identified in humans, with the only exception represented by Bifidobacterium animalis. We finally evaluated that the abundance of Bifidobacteriaceae species exhibited moderate and variable capabilities to predict health status in case-control studies.
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B. bifidum is characteristic of the bifidobacterial communities residing in the infant gut and contributes to early microbial colonization, alongside B. breve.
“B. bifidum is characteristic of the bifidobacterial communities residing in the infant gut and contributes to early microbial colonization, alongside Bifidobacterium breve [6-10] .”
From Genome-scale insights into the metabolic landscape and evolutionary development of Bifidobacterium bifidum (2026) · cites this paper as [10]
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Bacteriocin gene-mediated ecological adaptation of Bifidobacterium breve in the adult human gut
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- Authors
- Pasolli, E., Mauriello, I. E., Avagliano, M., Cavaliere, S., De Filippis, F., & Ercolini, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Naples Federico II (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Pasolli, Edoardo
- Ercolini, Danilo
- Venue
- Cell Reports
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2024-12
- Volume
- 43
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 115027
- ISSN
- 2211-1247 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4404722500
- Cited by
- 22
- References
- 49
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 10
- FWCI
- 3.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Cell Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Horizon 2020
- EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Societal Challenges (818368)
- Ministry of Agriculture Forest Food and Tourism
- Horizon 2020 Framework Programme
- European Commission
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Gut microbiota and health
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Food Science › Probiotics and Fermented Foods
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
- Keywords
- Bifidobacteriaceae, human gut microbiome, strain-level diversity, carbohydrate-active enzymes, Bifidobacterium animalis, probiotics, Western lifestyle, regional variation, health prediction, functional annotation
- MeSH terms
- Humans, Phylogeny, Genome, Bacterial, Probiotics, Metagenome, Genome-Wide Association Study, Microbiota
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