New Roles of Prevotella in Carbohydrate Metabolism
To investigate the composition, diversity, and functional roles of Prevotella in the human gut, a population-wide analysis was conducted on 586 healthy samples from western and non-western populations. This includes the largest Indian cohort comprising 200 samples and 189 Inflammatory Bowel Disease samples from western populations. A higher abundance and diversity of Prevotella copri species enriched in complex plant polysaccharide metabolizing enzymes, particularly pullulanase containing polysaccharide-utilization-loci (PUL), were found in Indian and non-western populations. There was also a higher diversity of oral inflammation-associated Prevotella species and an enrichment of virulence factors and antibiotic resistance genes in the gut microbiome of western populations, speculating the existence of a mouth-gut axis.