What is the significance of Bacteroides?
Description and Significance. Bacteroides are commonly found in the human intestine where they have a symbiotic host-bacterial relationship with humans. They assist in breaking down food and producing valuable nutrients and energy that the body needs.
How does Bacteroides become part of the human flora?
Bacteroidesmay be passed from mother to child during vaginal birth and thus become part of the human flora in the earliest stages of life (208). The bacteria maintain a complex and generally beneficial relationship with the host when retained in the gut, and their role as commensals has been extensively reviewed (308).
What is the genus of Bacteroides?
Bacteroides is the predominant genus within the lower human intestinal tract, as evidenced by its prevalence in the product of this open-ended culture system, faeces. Within the intestinal tract Bacteroides spp. host molecular interaction can influence host function, for example in relation to immune system development.
Are Bacteroides and Fusobacterium related?
The genera Bacteroides and Fusobacterium are phylogenetically related to the Flavobacterium and Cytophaga genera. The main Gram-negative anaerobic organisms isolated from human sources are found in the Bacteroides, Prevotella, Porphyromonas (see below), Fusobacterium and Leptotrichia species.

Where are Bacteroides found in the human body?
Members of the Bacteroidetes phylum are well known colonizers of the colon. They account for about 50% of the 16S rRNA sequences detected from healthy human mucosal tissues (Eckburg et al., 2005).
Are Bacteroides found in the large intestine?
Adaptive survival in the GI tract. Bacteroides species have a superb ability to utilize the nutrients at hand. In the large intestine, these bacteria utilize simple and complex sugars and polysaccharides for growth (118).
What is the role of Bacteroides in the human gut?
As gut commensals, Bacteroides spp. play multiple roles; they can provide protection from pathogens and supply nutrients to other microbial residents of the gut.
Is Bacteroides found on the skin?
Bacteroides infections can develop in all body sites, including the CNS, the head, the neck, the chest, the abdomen, the pelvis, the skin, and the soft tissues. Inadequate therapy against these anaerobic bacteria may lead to clinical failure.
What are human Bacteroides?
Human Bacteroides (Hu-Bac) are a genus of gram-negative bacteria that predominantly thrive in the lower gastrointestinal tract of humans and are therefore directly associated with fecal contamination.
What foods contain Bacteroidetes?
Beans are among the very best foods to raise your Bacteroidetes. (7) If you can't digest beans, that's likely a sign that you have too few Bacteroidetes. But rather than avoid beans completely, studies(8) have shown that if you add beans into your diet slowly, and stick with them, the symptoms will go away.
What kills Bacteroides?
Bacteroidetocins are related to class IIa bacteriocins of Gram-positive bacteria and kill members of the Bacteroidetes phylum, including Bacteroides, Parabacteroides, and Prevotella gut species, as well as pathogenic Prevotella species.
What does it mean to have high Bacteroidetes?
What does it mean if your Bacteroidetes result is too high? Gram-negative species of the Bacteroidetes phylum. Immune-modulating normal gut species. Believed to be involved in microbial balance, barrier integrity, and neuroimmune health. - High levels may result from reduced digestive capacity or constipation.
What are the survival features of Bacteroides?
Although Bacteroides species are anaerobic, they are transiently aerotolerant and thus can survive in the abdominal cavity. In general, Bacteroides are resistant to a wide variety of antibiotics—β-lactams, aminoglycosides, and recently many species have acquired resistance to erythromycin and tetracycline.
What infections do Bacteroides cause?
Infections where single organism isolation is most commonly associated with Bacteroides include endocarditis, meningitis, septic arthritis and osteomyelitis (36).
What antibiotics treat Bacteroides?
Active against most Bacteroides spp: metronidazole (~99-100%), imipenem (97-100%), piperacillin/tazobactam (95-97%).
How many Bacteroides are there?
Bacteroides is a genus of gram-negative, non–spore-forming, obligately anaerobic, rod-shaped bacteria. More than 30 species ofBacteroides have been recognized.
In what type of ecosystem within the body do Bacteroides live?
Bacteroides are commonly found in the human intestine where they have a symbiotic host-bacterial relationship with humans.
What do firmicutes do in the gut?
Firmicutes play a significant role in the relationship between gut bacteria and human health. Many of the members of this phylum break down carbohydrates in the gut that can't be digested by the body's enzymes, such as dietary fibre and resistant starch. This process is called fermentation.
What do Bacteroides cause?
Bacteroides fragilis is the most common cause of anaerobic infections in humans. Infection due to Bacteroides fragilis is usually polymicrobial and results from a disruption in tissue barriers. Source control and targeted antimicrobial therapy are the two keys to control Bacteroides fragilis infection.
Are probiotics Bacteroidetes?
Studies had revealed that Bacteroides can reduce the intestinal oxygen level to promote the growth of strict anaerobes (23) and some strains of Bifidobacterium have been put into use as probiotics in food and medicine (10, 27).
Classification
Description and Significance
- Bacteroides are commonly found in the human intestine where they have a symbiotic host-bacterial relationship with humans. They assist in breaking down food and producing valuable nutrients and energy that the body needs. However, when Bacteriodesare introduced to parts of the body other than the gastrointestinal area, they can cause or exacerbate ...
Genome Structure
- The genome of the circular chromosome of many Bacteroides species and strains have been studied; research is being done on sequencing Bacteroides species in order to understand their pathogenic properties. All Bacteroides have G-C composition of 40-48%. Strain NCTC9343 of the species Bacteroides fragilis, for example, is 5,205,140 bp long and has a G-C content of 43.19%. …
Cell Structure and Metabolism
- Bacteroides are gram-negative, nonsporeforming, anaerobic, and rod-shaped bacteria. They have an outer membrane, a peptidoglycan layer, and a cytoplasmic membrane. The main by-products of their anaerobic respiration are acetic acid, iso valeric acid, and succinic acid. They are involved in many important metabolic activities in the human colon including fermentation of carbohydra…
Pathology
- When Bacteroides escape the gut, they are responsible for many types of infections and abscesses that can occur all over the body including the central nervous system, the head, the neck, the chest, the abdomen, the pelvis, the skin, and the soft tissues. The widely accepted model for abdominal infections goes as follows: disruptions of the intestinal wall, bacterial flora infiltra…