[W4-4] Molecular perspectives on responders and non-responders to prebiotics
Recently, the concept of precision medicine and nutrition has received much attention in the field of life sciences, due to significant inter-individual variation in response to treatment. Some clinical studies have indicated that the commensal gut microbiota is associated with the efficacy of medicine and diet-based interventions. Prebiotics, such as lactulose, have been reported to increase the abundance of bifidobacteria in the gut. We speculate that if the lactulose assimilation strategy by bifidobacteria can be clearly determined, clinical responders for each prebiotic could be predicted by analysing targeted genes of the gut microbiota. By means of a gene disruption strategy, we found that a solute-binding protein (SBP) with locus tag number BL105A_0502 in bifidobacteria was primarily responsible for lactulose uptake. Most remarkably, we found that the increase in the abundance of bifidobacteria upon lactulose ingestion was dependent on the abundance of the SBP. These results enable us to understand the molecular basis underlying the prebiotics-responder and non-responder status and provide a mechanistic insight into clinical interventions that test the efficacy of prebiotics.