Investigation into the stability and culturability of Chinese enterotypes

Although many gut microbial enterotypes have been reported in Europe, Africa and the U.S., their effects on human health are still not yet clear. Culturing gut microbial enterotypes in vitro will be helpful to study their effects and applications. Here, fecal samples from 13 healthy Chinese volunteers were collected and subjected to next-generation sequencing. The results showed that seven of these samples belong to the Bacteroides enterotype and another six to the Prevotella enterotype. Stability of these Chinese gut microbial enterotypes was also evaluated. Results showed that most of the tested volunteer gut microbiota to be very stable. For one volunteer, the bacterial community returned to the state it was in before intestinal lavage and antibiotics treatment after four months. XP medium was found effective for simulating the Bacteroides enterotype independent of the original gut microbial community in an in vitro chemostat culture system. Although, the Prevotella enterotype was not very well simulated in vitro, different culture elements selectively enriched different gut bacteria. Pectin and xylan were found to be related to the enrichment of the genera Bacteroides, Sutterella, and Flavonifractor in this chemostat culture system.