Cell Host & Microbe
Volume 30, Issue 8, 10 August 2022, Pages 1084-1092.e5
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Short Article
Gut commensals expand vitamin A metabolic capacity of the mammalian host

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chom.2022.06.011Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Targeted metabolomics reveal that commensal bacteria produce retinoids in the gut

  • Vitamin A metabolism is a feature of symbiotic microbial community

  • Gut bacteria encode vitamin A metabolism machinery independent of the host

  • Lactobacillus spp isolated from murine gut restores atRA in vancomycin-treated mice

Summary

Conversion of dietary vitamin A (VA) into retinoic acid (RA) is essential for many biological processes and thus far studied largely in mammalian cells. Using targeted metabolomics, we found that commensal bacteria in the mouse gut lumen produced a high concentration of the active retinoids, all-trans-retinoic acid (atRA) and 13-cis-retinoic acid (13cisRA), as well as the principal circulating retinoid, retinol. Ablation of anerobic bacteria significantly reduced retinol, atRA, and 13cisRA, whereas introducing these bacteria into germ-free mice significantly enhanced retinoids. Remarkably, cecal bacterial supplemented with VA produced active retinoids in vitro, establishing that gut bacteria encode metabolic machinery necessary for multistep conversion of dietary VA into its active forms. Finally, gut bacteria Lactobacillus intestinalis metabolized VA and specifically restored RA levels in the gut of vancomycin-treated mice. Our work establishes vitamin A metabolism as an emergent property of the gut microbiome and lays the groundwork for developing probiotic-based retinoid therapy.

Keywords

vitamin A metabolism
microbiome
all-trans-retinoic acid
13-cis-retinoic acid
retinol
germ-free mice
LC-MS/MS

Data and code availability

  • Raw reads were deposited into the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database under the BioProject ID number PRJNA802594.

  • This paper does not report original code.

  • Any additional information required to reanalyze the data reported in this work paper is available from the lead contact upon request

Cited by (0)

3

These authors contributed equally

4

Lead contact