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Dietary Oligosaccharides Are Differentially Metabolized By Commensal Microbiota Within In Vitro Model Systems, Ezgi Özcan Oct 2019

Dietary Oligosaccharides Are Differentially Metabolized By Commensal Microbiota Within In Vitro Model Systems, Ezgi Özcan

Doctoral Dissertations

Our diet contains indigestible carbohydrates that are available for microbial metabolism within the gastrointestinal tract. These carbohydrate sources are oligosaccharides found in plants and human milk. Oligosaccharide utilization phenotypes are often consistent with the ecological niche that microbes occupy (e.g. adult gut, infant gut, plants). This study represents an in-depth metabolic analysis for utilization of human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) including lacto-N-tetraose (LNT) and lacto-N-neotetraose (LNnT), and cranberry oligosaccharides (i.e. xyloglucans) within in vitro modeled systems. These model systems include microplate systems for pure cultures as well as an adapted bioreactor system to mimic microbial interactions within the gut. Infant-colonizing Bifidobacterium …


A Comparative Analysis Of The Fermentation Capabilities Of Various Bifidobacterium Strains, Ella Oney Mar 2019

A Comparative Analysis Of The Fermentation Capabilities Of Various Bifidobacterium Strains, Ella Oney

Honors Theses

Bifidobacterium is a genus of anaerobic bacteria that are commonly found to inhabit the gastrointestinal tract of many members of the animal kingdom. These microorganisms are adapted to obtain their carbon from the breakdown of complex carbohydrates. Marmosets, a mammal whose gut microbiome is inhabited by high levels of Bifidobacteria, consume gum Arabic as a major part of their diet. The purpose of this experiment is to determine whether Bifidobacterium strains isolated from the guts of marmosets are able to degrade and ferment this complex carbohydrate or one of its main constituents, arabinose. This was accomplished by inoculating isolates of …