As the world grapples with the big problem of feeding 7.6 billion people, University of Lethbridge adjunct professor Dr. Wade Abbott of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and his team have detailed the smallest of metabolic reactions with the goal of improving food security, food safety and animal nutrition.
As the world grapples with the big problem of feeding 7.6 billion people, University of Lethbridge adjunct professor Dr. Wade Abbott of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and his team have detailed the smallest of metabolic reactions with the goal of improving food security, food safety and animal nutrition.
Abbott and his group, which includes the Institute for Cell and Molecular Biosciences at Newcastle University, UK, Dr. Steve Mosimann of the U of L’s Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry and a trio of former U of L students, have been looking at prominent bacteria (Bacteroides) that thrive in the human gut microbiome, and detailing what glycans (carbohydrates) they eat on our behalf and how these processes take place, step-by-step. Understanding this, Abbott says, creates opportunities to manipulate the microbiome and possibly enhance food digestibility.
“It’s not enough to know what genes are present in the microbiome, we need to know what these genes do,” he says.
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Image via University of Lethbridge.
