With the use of molecular techniques, numerous studies have evaluated the composition of the intestinal microbiota in health and disease. However, it is of major interest to supplement this with a functional analysis of the microbiota. In this review, the different approaches that have been used to characterize microbial metabolites, yielding information on the functional end products of microb...

Electrical current can be used to supply reducing power to microbial metabolism. This phenomenon is typically studied in pure cultures with added redox mediators to transfer charge. Here, we investigate the development of a current-fed mixed microbial community fermenting glycerol at the cathode of a bioelectrochemical system in the absence of added mediators and identify correlations between m...

This experiment aimed to investigate the effects of liquid metabolite (LM) produced by Lactobacillus plantarum and dietary putrescine (PUT) on growth, blood lipids, villus height (VH), crypt depth (CD) and polyamines (PAs) content of intestinal tissue and ileal digesta in chickens. Six treatments, replicated six time each, were factorial arrangements of two levels of LM (0 and 0.3%) and three l...

Microbial metabolism of danazol (17alpha-pregna-2,4-dien-20-yno[2,3-d]isoxazol-17beta-ol) by Beauveria bassiana ATCC 7159 and Glyocladium viride ATCC 10097 afforded four metabolites. The isolated metabolites were identified by different spectroscopic techniques as 6beta-hydroxy danazol, which is a not yet reported danazol metabolite, 17beta-hydroxy-17alpha-pregn-4-en-20-yn-3-one (ethisterone) a...

Bacterial responses to antibiotics are concentration-dependent. At high concentrations, antibiotics exhibit antimicrobial activities on susceptible cells, while subinhibitory concentrations induce diverse biological responses in bacteria. At non-lethal concentrations, bacteria may sense antibiotics as extracellular chemicals to trigger different cellular responses, which may include an altered ...

In the present study, a defined mixed microbial consortium was investigated for their ability to utilize three different monochlorophenols (MCPs) and 2,4-DCP individually and in the mixture. None of the individual strains were able to utilize 3-CP and 4-CP, but when they were mixed to form defined consortium, they have shown great potential and degradation of high concentration of 3-CP and 4-CP...

The metabolic state of a bacterial cell influences its susceptibility to antibiotics. In this issue, Peng et al. (2015) show that resistant bacteria can be sensitized to antibiotic treatment through the addition of exogenous metabolites that stimulate central metabolic pathways and increase drug uptake.

Tandem high-throughput proteomics and metabolomics were employed to functionally characterize natural microbial biofilm communities. Distinct molecular signatures exist for each analyzed sample. Deconvolution of the high-resolution molecular data demonstrates that identified proteins and detected metabolites exhibit organism-specific correlation patterns. These patterns are reflective of the fu...

In this article we briefly review theories about the ecological roles of microbial secondary metabolites and discuss the prevalence of multiple secondary metabolite production by strains of Streptomyces, highlighting results from analysis of the recently sequenced Streptomyces coelicolor and Streptomyces avermitilis genomes. We address this question: Why is multiple secondary metabolite product...