ArticleNature microbiology2022
Clostridium sporogenes uses reductive Stickland metabolism in the gut to generate ATP and produce circulating metabolites.
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 57 papers.
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57 citing papers in PubMed, 91 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Identification of the complete pathway for conversion of bilirubin to urobilinogen by human gut bacteria.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Interspecies interactions drive bacterial proteome reorganization and emergent metabolism.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Apple Pomace Fermented with Non-International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- pH regulates gut bacterial tryptophan metabolism.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2026Article
- Characterization of Protein Expression Patterns inACS omega · 2026Article
- Identifying the Ratio of Circulating Cinnamoylglycine to Isoleucine as a Biomarker Linking Diet Quality, Microbial Metabolism, and Type 2 Diabetes Risk in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Cohorts.The Journal of nutrition · 2026Article
- Indole-3-acetic acid production is rare among gut bacteria and reflects OFOR-driven amino acid oxidation in acetogens.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- From Gut to Brain: Glyphosate and Triclosan Impair Microbiome Composition, Neuroactive Metabolites, and Cognitive and Ecological Fitness inEnvironmental science & technology · 2026Article
- Fermentation-driven interactions of gut microbes with their environment.Essays in biochemistry · 2025Review
- MMETHANE: interpretable AI for predicting host status from microbial composition and metabolomics data.Microbiome · 2025Article
- Novel cross-feeding human gut microbes metabolizing tryptophan to indole-3-propionate.Gut microbes · 2025Article
- A reductive uric acid degradation pathway in anaerobic bacteria.Life metabolism · 2025Article
- L-proline supplementation affects non-volatile flavour perception through oral microbiome metabolic pathways.NPJ science of food · 2025Article
- Gut bacteria degrade purines via the 2,8-dioxopurine pathway.Nature microbiology · 2025Article
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6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
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Abstract
Gut bacteria face a key problem in how they capture enough energy to sustain their growth and physiology. The gut bacterium Clostridium sporogenes obtains its energy by utilizing amino acids in pairs, coupling the oxidation of one to the reduction of another-the Stickland reaction. Oxidative pathways produce ATP via substrate-level phosphorylation, whereas reductive pathways are thought to balance redox. In the present study, we investigated whether these reductive pathways are also linked to energy generation and the production of microbial metabolites that may circulate and impact host physiology. Using metabolomics, we find that, during growth in vitro, C. sporogenes produces 15 metabolites, 13 of which are present in the gut of C. sporogenes-colonized mice. Four of these compounds are reductive Stickland metabolites that circulate in the blood of gnotobiotic mice and are also detected in plasma from healthy humans. Gene clusters for reductive Stickland pathways suggest involvement of electron transfer proteins, and experiments in vitro demonstrate that reductive metabolism is coupled to ATP formation and not just redox balance. Genetic analysis points to the broadly conserved Rnf complex as a key coupling site for energy transduction. Rnf complex mutants show aberrant amino acid metabolism in a defined medium and are attenuated for growth in the mouse gut, demonstrating a role of the Rnf complex in Stickland metabolism and gut colonization. Our findings reveal that the production of circulating metabolites by a commensal bacterium within the host gut is linked to an ATP-yielding redox process.
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