ArticlePLoS biology2012
The evolution of mutualism in gut microbiota via host epithelial selection.
Article in PLoS biology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 131 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
131 citing papers in PubMed, 225 citations in OpenAlex.
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- The Adult Aedes aegypti Bacterial Microbiota is Robust to Infection with the Obligate Microsporidian Parasite Edhazardia aedis.Environmental microbiology · 2026Article
- Systems engineering of engineered live biotherapeutics: A discovery-to-translation framework for streamlining microbiome therapeutic development.Journal of controlled release : official journal of the Controlled Release Society · 2026Review
- The island biology of the host microbiome.Trends in microbiology · 2026Review
- The uropygial gland of the European hoopoe as a symbiotic organ.Animal microbiome · 2026Article
- Broad Ecological Niche in Seashore Lichens Emerges From a Stable, Selective Association With Generalist Algal Symbionts.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Applying evolutionary theory to understand host-microbiome evolution.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Review
- Toward the Next Generation of In Silico Modeling of Dynamic Host-Microbiota Interactions in the Skin.JID innovations : skin science from molecules to population health · 2025Review
- Fecal Microbiota Transplantation for Disorders of Gut-Brain Interaction: Current Insights, Effectiveness, and Future Perspectives.Current gastroenterology reports · 2025Review
- Recent advances in the application of microbiota transplantation in chickens.Journal of animal science and biotechnology · 2025Review
- Phage-Microbiota Crosstalk: Implications for Central Nervous System Disorders.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Metabolic ecology of microbiomes: Nutrient competition, host benefits, and community engineering.Cell host & microbe · 2025Review
- Article
- Agent-based model of the human colon to investigate mechanisms of pathogen colonization resistance.Biophysical journal · 2025Article
- Macroecological patterns in experimental microbial communities.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Integrating microbial GWAS and single-cell transcriptomics reveals associations between host cell populations and the gut microbiome.Nature microbiology · 2025Article
- Article
- Antibiotic-perturbed microbiota and the role of probiotics.Nature reviews. Gastroenterology & hepatology · 2025Review
- The role of bacterial metabolism in human gut colonization.International microbiology : the official journal of the Spanish Society for Microbiology · 2025Review
- Synthetic β-d-Glucuronides: Substrates for Exploring Glucuronide Degradation by Human Gut Bacteria.ACS omega · 2025Article
71 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The human gut harbours a large and genetically diverse population of symbiotic microbes that both feed and protect the host. Evolutionary theory, however, predicts that such genetic diversity can destabilise mutualistic partnerships. How then can the mutualism of the human microbiota be explained? Here we develop an individual-based model of host-associated microbial communities. We first demonstrate the fundamental problem faced by a host: The presence of a genetically diverse microbiota leads to the dominance of the fastest growing microbes instead of the microbes that are most beneficial to the host. We next investigate the potential for host secretions to influence the microbiota. This reveals that the epithelium-microbiota interface acts as a selectivity amplifier: Modest amounts of moderately selective epithelial secretions cause a complete shift in the strains growing at the epithelial surface. This occurs because of the physical structure of the epithelium-microbiota interface: Epithelial secretions have effects that permeate upwards through the whole microbial community, while lumen compounds preferentially affect cells that are soon to slough off. Finally, our model predicts that while antimicrobial secretion can promote host epithelial selection, epithelial nutrient secretion will often be key to host selection. Our findings are consistent with a growing number of empirical papers that indicate an influence of host factors upon microbiota, including growth-promoting glycoconjugates. We argue that host selection is likely to be a key mechanism in the stabilisation of the mutualism between a host and its microbiota.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.