I am currently working on the core project entitled “The role of mucus in the cross-talk between gut bacteria and the host”.

I am more especially working on mucin degradation/utilisation by Ruminococcus gnavus, a prominent symbiont of the human gut. We are building up a small collection of R. gnavus strains, all isolated from human faecal samples, and we previously showed that the utilisation of mucins by R. gnavus is strain-dependent. An intramolecular trans-sialidase that plays a role in mucin degradation has been identified in R. gnavus ATCC 29149 and is being characterised in our group.

The goals of this part of the project are: – to understand the differences between the R. gnavus strains by growth assays, genome comparison, transcriptome comparison and enzyme comparison. – to identify and characterise more mucin-degrading enzymes in R. gnavus. – to assess the importance of mucin-degradation in the ability of R. gnavus to colonise and compete in the gut. I am more especially carrying out the growth assays, the genomic/transcriptomic analyses and the in vivo work (personal licence obtained in March 2014).

Key Publications

Crost, E.H., Tailford, L.E., Le Gall, G., Henrissat, B., Fons, M. & Juge, N. (2013) Utilization of host glycans by the human gut symbiont Ruminococcus gnavus is strain dependent. PLOS ONE, 8(10):e76341.

Tailford, L.E., Owen, C.D., Walshaw, J., Crost, E.H., Hardy-Goddard, J., Le Gall, G., de Vos, W.M., Taylor, G.L. & Juge, N. (2015) Discovery of intramolecular trans-sialidases in human gut microbiota suggests novel mechanisms of mucosal adaptation. Nat. Commun., 6:7624.

Crost, E.H., Tailford, L.E., Monestier, M., Swarbreck, D., Henrissat, B., Crossman, L.C. & Juge, N. (2016) The mucin-degradation strategy of Ruminococcus gnavus: The importance of intramolecular trans-sialidases. Gut Microbes, 7(4):302-312.

Wegmann U., Nueno Palop C., Mayer M. J., Crost, E. & Narbad, A. (2017) Complete Genome Sequence of Desulfovibrio piger FI11049, Genome Announcements, 2017 vol. 5 no. 7 e01528-16 Review

Tailford, L.E.*, Crost, E.H.*, Kavanaugh, D* & Juge, N. (2015) Mucin glycan foraging in the human gut microbiome. Front. Genet., 6:81.* Co- first authors