Sulfoquinovose is exclusively metabolized by the gut microbiota and degraded differently in mice and humans

作者：Julia Krasenbrink, Buck Hanson, Anna S. Weiß, Sabrina Borusak, Tomohisa Sebastian Tanabe, Michaela Lang, Georg Aichinger, Bela Hausmann, David Berry, Andreas Richter, Doris Marko, Marc Mußmann, David Schleheck, Bärbel Stecher, Alexander Loy · 发表于：Microbiome · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1186/s40168-025-02175-x · 被引用次数：8 · 研究领域：Environmental Chemistry and Analysis、Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances research、Sulfur Compounds in Biology

BACKGROUND: Sulfoquinovose (SQ) is a green-diet-derived sulfonated glucose and a selective substrate for a limited number of human gut bacteria. Complete anaerobic SQ degradation via interspecies metabolite transfer to sulfonate-respiring bacteria produces hydrogen sulfide, which has dose- and context-dependent health effects. Here, we studied potential SQ degradation by the mammalian host and the impact of SQ supplementation on human and murine gut microbiota diversity and metabolism. RESULTS: C-SQ were negative. Also, SQ was not degraded by human intestinal cells in vitro, indicating that SQ is not directly metabolized by mice and humans. Addition of increasing SQ concentrations to human fecal microcosms revealed dose-dependent responses of the microbiota and corroborated the relevance of Agathobacter rectalis and Bilophila wadsworthia in cooperative degradation of SQ to hydrogen sulfide via interspecies transfer of 2,3-dihydroxy-1-propanesulfonate (DHPS). Similar to the human gut microbiome, the genetic capacity for SQ or DHPS degradation is sparsely distributed among bacterial species in the gut of conventional laboratory mice. Escherichia coli and Enterocloster clostridioformis were identified as primary SQ degraders in the mouse gut. SQ and DHPS supplementation experiments with conventional laboratory mice and their intestinal contents showed that SQ was incompletely catabolized to DHPS. Although some E. clostridioformis genomes encode an extended sulfoglycolytic pathwa...