# Dietary copper reconfigures pathogen growth

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS · 2020 · $235,500

## Abstract

Project Summary
The vertebrate large intestine is host to a large microbial community that confers benefit by
functioning in host nutrition, immune education and colonization resistance against enteric
pathogens. The composition of the gut microbiota varies with the diet, but little is known about
how shifts in the microbiota composition affect functionality, such as the ability to confer
colonization resistance against enteric pathogens. Here we will investigate how dietary copper
supplementation, a common practice to improve growth performance in livestock, alters
colonization resistance against the enteric pathogen Salmonella enterica serovar (S.)
Typhimurium. Our central hypothesis is that dietary copper supplementation depletes propionate-
producing Bacteroidaceae from the gut microbiota, thereby conferring a fitness advantage for S.
Typhimurium strains carrying the sopE gene. We will test key aspects of our hypothesis and
accomplish the objectives of this application using the logical and innovative approach outlined in
the following specific aim: Determine whether a dietary copper-induced Bacteroidaceae depletion
lowers colonization resistance against S. Typhimurium lysogenized with a sopE-encoding
prophage. It is our expectation that the outcome of our experiments will show that diet-induced
shifts in the gut microbiota composition in livestock can select for enteric pathogens carrying new
virulence factors, which is relevant for human health because livestock carriage is a common
route for introducing the pathogen into our food supply. This outcome will be significant because
it will usher in the novel concept that diet-induced shifts in the microbiota composition can select
for new virulence factors in enteric pathogens, a paradigm of broad interest to researchers in
bacterial pathogenesis, microbiota and nutrition.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9948574
- **Project number:** 5R21AI146432-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS
- **Principal Investigator:** Andreas J Baumler
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $235,500
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-06-06 → 2021-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9948574

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9948574, Dietary copper reconfigures pathogen growth (5R21AI146432-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9948574. Licensed CC0.

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