ArticleNature microbiology2022
Mechanistic insights into consumption of the food additive xanthan gum by the human gut microbiota.
Article in Nature microbiology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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.
Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 66 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Alginate foraging is conserved in geographically and taxonomically distinct ruminant microbiomes.Nature communications · 2026Article
- A comprehensive review on structural, chemical, and functional perspectives of dietary polysaccharide-driven gut microbiota modulation: Mechanisms and challenges.Biochemistry and biophysics reports · 2026Review
- Gut microbiota: A key player for soluble dietary fiber in regulating inflammatory disease.Journal of advanced research · 2026Review
- The butyrate-producing Gram-positive human gut bacterium, Hoskinsella mucinilytica, selectively targets host mucin N-acetylhexosamines.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2026Article
- Differential Effects of Commercial Food-Grade Carrageenan Preparations on DSS-Induced Colitis and Gut Microbiota in Mice.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- A twin xanthan lyase-dependent xanthan degradation system in Paenibacillus taichungensis I5.Applied microbiology and biotechnology · 2026Article
- Genomic and proteomic characterization of a newly isolatedMicrobiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Description ofInternational journal of systematic and evolutionary microbiology · 2026Article
- Article
- Designed dietary fibers: engineering carbohydrate structure for precision modulation of the human gut microbiome.Current opinion in biotechnology · 2025Review
- Carbohydrates and the oxidative branch of the pentose phosphate pathway modifyJournal of bacteriology · 2025Article
- The gut microbiome and dietary fibres: implications in obesity, cardiometabolic diseases and cancer.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2025Review
- Metagenome-guided culturomics for the targeted enrichment of gut microbes.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Food hydrocolloids κ-carrageenan and xanthan gum in processed red meat modify gut health in rats.Current research in food science · 2025Article
- Nature should be the model for microbial sciences.Journal of bacteriology · 2024Review
- Article
- Metaproteomics reveals parallel utilization of colonic mucin glycans and dietary fibers by the human gut microbiota.iScience · 2024Article
- Ultra-processed food consumption and mortality among patients with stages I-III colorectal cancer: a prospective cohort study.EClinicalMedicine · 2024Article
- Food additive emulsifiers: a new risk factor for type 2 diabetes?The lancet. Diabetes & endocrinology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
26 authors at 7 institutions in 6 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Processed foods often include food additives such as xanthan gum, a complex polysaccharide with unique rheological properties, that has established widespread use as a stabilizer and thickening agent. Xanthan gum's chemical structure is distinct from those of host and dietary polysaccharides that are more commonly expected to transit the gastrointestinal tract, and little is known about its direct interaction with the gut microbiota, which plays a central role in digestion of other dietary fibre polysaccharides. Here we show that the ability to digest xanthan gum is common in human gut microbiomes from industrialized countries and appears contingent on a single uncultured bacterium in the family Ruminococcaceae. Our data reveal that this primary degrader cleaves the xanthan gum backbone before processing the released oligosaccharides using additional enzymes. Some individuals harbour Bacteroides intestinalis that is incapable of consuming polymeric xanthan gum but grows on oligosaccharide products generated by the Ruminococcaceae. Feeding xanthan gum to germfree mice colonized with a human microbiota containing the uncultured Ruminococcaceae supports the idea that the additive xanthan gum can drive expansion of the primary degrader Ruminococcaceae, along with exogenously introduced B. intestinalis. Our work demonstrates the existence of a potential xanthan gum food chain involving at least two members of different phyla of gut bacteria and provides an initial framework for understanding how widespread consumption of a recently introduced food additive influences human microbiomes.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.