Caroline Kim

Citation

Thesis Title
Microbial responses to carbohydrates

Read article at Massey Research Online:

Abundant pectin consumption is an important aspect of human nutrition, as this carbohydrate comprises approximately 40 percent of the plant cell wall of vegetables and fruit. Pectin degradation by symbiotic gut bacteria is a prerequisite for initiating plant digestion in the human colon. Yet, no precise model organism for studying colonic pectin degradation remains available due to the technical difficulty of cultivating anaerobic gut microbes. Ms Kim discovered Monoglobus pectinilyticus, the first human gut bacterium to show exclusive enzymatic and metabolic specialisations for pectin degradation and utilisation. Her findings shed a new light on the existence of a novel group of gut bacteria that potentially occupies an ecological niche as primary carbohydrate degraders, and a new mechanism of gut microbial polysaccharide degradation. These results make a major contribution to understanding the succession of microbial events leading to the plant digestion in the human gut.

Supervisors
Dr Mark Patchett
Dr Zoe Jordens
Dr Bill Kelly
Professor Gerald Tannock