# Control of carbohydrate utilization in the prominent gut bacterium Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron

> **NIH NIH R01** · YALE UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $334,379

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
This proposal examines the microbial responses to nutrients by investigating Bacteroides
thetaiotaomicron, a prominent gut commensal bacterium that can grow on a large number of
carbohydrates that humans and many other microbes cannot utilize. ~18% of the B.
thetaiotaomicron's genome is predicted to mediate carbohydrate uptake and breakdown, and the
regulation of these processes. This proposal seeks to identify the signals controlling four
regulators of carbohydrate utilization, to define their regulated targets, and to establish how these
proteins exert their regulatory actions. First, we will investigate the control of and by a master
regulator of carbohydrate utilization implicated in gut colonization in several Bacteroides species.
This aim also explores the role of a paralog of elongation factor EF-G that is under control of the
master regulator, and like the master regulator, it is necessary for gut colonization and
carbohydrate utilization. Second, we will examine how glucose, the preferred carbon source in
most organisms, silences expression of a transcriptional activator necessary for gut colonization
in a diet-dependent manner. And third, we will determine how the essential transcription
termination factor Rho, which harbors a prion-like domain-containing element in B.
thetaiotaomicron, adopts different forms and controls different sets of genes required for gut
colonization and carbohydrate utilization. Our studies will reveal the mechanisms and
hierarchies governing carbohydrate utilization, and elucidate the role of both of a prion-like
domain in bacterial gene regulation. The proposed investigations may prove paradigmatic
because they focus on atypical regulatory proteins. In addition, they may help explain what
makes B. thetaiotaomicron a successful gut colonizer, and its abundance in lean healthy
individuals.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10140375
- **Project number:** 5R01GM123798-04
- **Recipient organization:** YALE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Eduardo Groisman
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $334,379
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-08-07 → 2022-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10140375

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10140375, Control of carbohydrate utilization in the prominent gut bacterium Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron (5R01GM123798-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10140375. Licensed CC0.

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