Evidence map›Paper›PMID 35196097›Full record

ArticleScience advances2022

Metabolic cross-feeding structures the assembly of polysaccharide degrading communities.

Sammy Pontrelli, Rachel Szabo, Shaul Pollak, Julia Schwartzman, Daniela Ledezma-Tejeida, Otto X Cordero, Uwe Sauer

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Science advances, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 55 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
55citing papers in PubMed
15.6field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

55 citing papers in PubMed, 100 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Cross-feeding enables robust coexistence between four bacterial species.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Physical encounters impose a consistency-amount trade-off on bacterial group formation in marine environments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
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  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Hypersensitivity of chitin degradation to initial species densities due to monomer diffusion.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  14. Review
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.

Sammy PontrelliInstitute of Molecular Systems Biology, ETH Zürich, Zurich 8093, Switzerland.ORCID 0000-0001-6265-8842
Rachel SzaboDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-9235-5148
Shaul PollakDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-8976-5944
Julia SchwartzmanDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-4563-4835
Daniela Ledezma-TejeidaInstitute of Molecular Systems Biology, ETH Zürich, Zurich 8093, Switzerland.ORCID 0000-0002-2055-417X
Otto X CorderoDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-2695-270X
Uwe SauerInstitute of Molecular Systems Biology, ETH Zürich, Zurich 8093, Switzerland.ORCID 0000-0002-5923-0770
Massachusetts Institute of Technology · USETH Zurich · CH

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Metabolic processes that fuel the growth of heterotrophic microbial communities are initiated by specialized biopolymer degraders that decompose complex forms of organic matter. It is unclear, however, to what extent degraders structure the downstream assembly of the community that follows polymer breakdown. Investigating a model marine microbial community that degrades chitin, we show that chitinases secreted by different degraders produce oligomers of specific chain lengths that not only select for specialized consumers but also influence the metabolites secreted by these consumers into a shared resource pool. Each species participating in the breakdown cascade exhibits unique hierarchical preferences for substrates, which underlies the sequential colonization of metabolically distinct groups as resource availability changes over time. By identifying the metabolic underpinnings of microbial community assembly, we reveal a hierarchical cross-feeding structure that allows biopolymer degraders to shape the dynamics of community assembly.

Identifiers

PMID35196097
PMCPMC8865766
OpenAlexW4212854314

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.