Divine Aleru, Microbiome Signatures Research Coordinator

This review shows that dietary polyphenols selectively increase Akkermansia muciniphila, improving gut barrier function and metabolic outcomes through microbiome-mediated mechanisms rather than direct antioxidant effects.

This review positions Akkermansia muciniphila as a key regulator of oxidative stress through mucin metabolism, bioactive proteins, and gut–organ signaling. Its clinical impact spans metabolic, inflammatory, and neurodegenerative conditions, with benefits strongly dependent on strain and host context.

What was reviewed?This systematic review evaluated how bioactive compounds, including dietary fibers, polyphenols, antioxidants, human milk oligosaccharides, and selected pharmaceuticals, influence the abundance and functional activity of Akkermansia muciniphila in the gut. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, the authors synthesized experimental evidence from 2004 to 2025 to clarify mechanisms through which these compounds modulate A. muciniphila […]

This review summarizes evidence that diet, prebiotics, and drugs such as metformin can increase Akkermansia muciniphila, a mucus-associated bacterium linked to improved metabolic health and reduced inflammation.

This study shows that live Akkermansia muciniphila protects against diet-induced obesity by selectively remodeling intestinal mucus glycan composition and barrier gene expression, rather than altering overall microbiome structure.

This study shows how gut bacterial mucinases precisely cleave O-glycan-rich glycoproteins using specialized structural adaptations, enabling controlled mucus turnover while preserving barrier function and explaining how mucin-degrading microbes can be beneficial or harmful depending on context.

This study shows that Akkermansia muciniphila uses dietary polyphenols as iron carriers, enabling growth under iron limitation and outcompeting pathogenic bacteria through advanced iron acquisition systems.

This review highlights Akkermansia-derived extracellular vesicles as powerful regulators of gut barrier function, immune balance, metabolism, and cancer response, positioning them as promising cell-free microbiome therapeutics.

This study shows that Akkermansia muciniphila survives gastrointestinal stress through aggregation, adheres preferentially to mucus-secreting intestinal cells, and interacts with human mucins via specific proteins, supporting its therapeutic potential while highlighting dose-dependent safety considerations.

This review highlights Amuc_1100, a bioactive membrane protein from Akkermansia muciniphila, as a potent immunometabolic regulator that strengthens gut barrier function, reshapes microbiome composition, and modulates systemic inflammation across metabolic, inflammatory, and oncologic disease models.

This review explains how Akkermansia muciniphila proteins, not just the bacterium itself, regulate immunity, metabolism, gut barrier integrity, cancer response, and neuroinflammation, highlighting their emerging role as next-generation postbiotic therapeutics.

This review explains how mucin-degrading gut bacteria regulate barrier integrity, immunity, and disease risk in a context-dependent manner. It highlights why microbes such as Akkermansia muciniphila can be protective or harmful depending on diet, strain, and host immune status.

This study shows that Akkermansia muciniphila produces a uniquely structured lipooligosaccharide that preferentially activates anti-inflammatory TLR2 signaling while limiting TLR4-driven endotoxin responses. The findings explain how this Gram-negative symbiont supports immune balance and metabolic health.

This review explores when mucus degradation by Akkermansia muciniphila supports gut health and when it harms barrier integrity. Evidence shows its effects depend on host context, microbial balance, and mucus renewal capacity, reframing it as a condition-dependent microbiome signal rather than a universal probiotic.

This study shows that excessive Akkermansia muciniphila colonization damages the intestinal mucus barrier and tight junctions in colorectal cancer models, worsening inflammation and disease progression. Findings highlight its role as a context-dependent microbe rather than a universally beneficial probiotic.

This review summarizes evidence that Akkermansia muciniphila reduces inflammation and improves metabolic health by strengthening the gut barrier and regulating immune signaling. Findings support its role as a next-generation probiotic for obesity, diabetes, and related inflammatory conditions.

This review shows that Akkermansia muciniphila protects against bacterial and viral infections by strengthening gut barriers and regulating systemic immunity. Evidence supports its role as a next-generation probiotic with effects extending beyond metabolism into infection and immune resilience.

This study shows that antibiotics can select Akkermansia muciniphila variants that lose their ability to protect against obesity and metabolic dysfunction. The findings reveal a direct mechanistic link between antibiotic exposure, altered microbiome function, and chronic metabolic disease risk.

This study shows that human-derived Akkermansia muciniphila strains carry limited, mostly nonfunctional antibiotic resistance traits. Phenotypic testing confirms low risk of transferable resistance, supporting its safety as a next-generation probiotic and microbiome biomarker.

This review explains how Akkermansia muciniphila supports gut barrier integrity, immune balance, and metabolic health. Evidence highlights its role as a key microbiome signal across obesity, inflammation, and aging, with postbiotic strategies showing strong clinical promise.

This review synthesizes evidence showing Akkermansia muciniphila supports gut barrier integrity, immune balance, and metabolic health through mucin degradation, SCFA production, and bioactive proteins, with emerging human trials confirming safety and therapeutic promise.

What was reviewed?This review synthesized experimental, translational, and clinical evidence describing the biological functions of Akkermansia muciniphila in intestinal-related diseases. The authors evaluated how this mucin-degrading bacterium contributes to intestinal homeostasis, immune regulation, and metabolic balance, with emphasis on mechanistic pathways rather than descriptive abundance alone. The review integrated findings on live bacteria, pasteurized cells, […]

This review examines how Akkermansia muciniphila shapes gut immune signaling to reduce inflammation, obesity, and diabetes risk. Evidence shows that its abundance and derived proteins strengthen the intestinal barrier, suppress pro-inflammatory cytokines, and improve metabolic outcomes across experimental models and early human trials.

This review maps where Akkermansia muciniphila appears across the human gut and beyond, from early infancy to old age. Evidence links higher abundance with stronger mucus-barrier function and better metabolic health, while lower levels track with IBD, appendicitis severity, obesity, and dysglycemia.

Akkermansia muciniphila is a mucus-layer specialist that has shifted from “odd gut commensal” to one of the most mechanistically characterized next-generation probiotic candidates. First isolated from human feces using gastric mucin as the sole carbon and nitrogen source, it is adapted to life at the mucus–epithelium interface, where it converts host mucins into metabolites (notably acetate and propionate) that can feed other microbes and influence host physiology. Its genome encodes an unusually rich secretome for mucin foraging, dozens of predicted glycoside hydrolases, sulfatases, proteases, and sialidases, supporting stepwise dismantling of complex O-glycans and the mucin backbone.

This study explores the virulence mechanisms of Listeria monocytogenes, focusing on its surface proteins and iron acquisition systems, shedding light on potential therapeutic interventions and food safety strategies.

This study demonstrates that bacteriophage P100 is a safe and effective biocontrol agent for reducing Listeria monocytogenes in soft cheeses, offering a promising alternative to traditional antimicrobial agents.

This study demonstrates that the FOP bacteriophage cocktail effectively reduces Listeria monocytogenes levels in the gastrointestinal tract, without disturbing the gut microbiota, offering a promising alternative to antibiotics for treating or preventing Listeria infections.

This case report demonstrates the effectiveness of oral sulfamethoxazole in treating Listeria monocytogenes meningitis in a renal transplant patient, offering an alternative treatment approach for those allergic to penicillin.

This study explores copper resistance in Listeria monocytogenes, identifying how the csoR-copA-copZ operon, regulated by CsoR and CopZ, contributes to copper tolerance.

This study examines how Listeria monocytogenes uses two zinc uptake systems (ZurAM and ZinABC) to survive within the host, highlighting their importance for growth and virulence during infection.

This study explores the role of peroxidase enzymes in Listeria monocytogenes pathogenesis, revealing how the bacteria survive oxidative stress and how targeting specific enzymes could offer new therapeutic approaches for treating infections.

This study on Listeria monocytogenes reveals its mechanisms for acquiring iron from host proteins and external siderophores. Understanding these strategies aids in developing new treatments for infections.

This study explores the critical role of iron transport and metabolism in Listeria monocytogenes, focusing on key systems for iron acquisition and their implications for bacterial virulence and pathogenesis.

This study explores the critical role of iron acquisition systems in Listeria monocytogenes pathogenesis, focusing on Fur-regulated iron transporters and their impact on bacterial survival and virulence.

This study reveals how Listeria monocytogenes uses listeriolysin S (LLS) as a bacteriocin to alter the gut microbiota, aiding in colonization and infection, with implications for therapeutic interventions targeting microbiota modulation.

This study explores how Listeria monocytogenes organizes its surface proteins, specifically InlA and InlH, to adapt to different host environments and promote virulence, shedding light on the dynamic regulation of bacterial surface components during infection.

This study examines the protective effect of passive immunization with anti-ActA and anti-LLO antibodies against Listeria monocytogenes infection, showing how these antibodies reduce bacterial load and enhance survival in infected mice.

This study reveals how Listeria monocytogenes uses listeriolysin O (LLO) to disrupt host cell membranes, aiding in bacterial survival and spread. It highlights the potential for LLO-targeted therapies and biotechnological applications.

This study highlights the critical role of CD147 in facilitating Listeria monocytogenes membrane protrusion formation and cell-to-cell spreading, offering insights into potential therapeutic targets for limiting infection spread.

This study uncovers how Listeria monocytogenes uses listeriolysin O (LLO) to induce host cell entry via membrane perforation, a novel pathogen strategy for invasion.

This study explores how Listeria monocytogenes InlC modulates the host immune response by inhibiting the NF-κB pathway, highlighting its role in immune evasion and infection persistence.

This review explores the role of internalin proteins in Listeria monocytogenes pathogenesis, focusing on their ability to facilitate bacterial invasion, spread, and crossing of key host barriers such as the intestinal, blood-brain, and placental barriers.

This study investigates the role of Listeria monocytogenes internalin A in the interaction with human E-cadherin, essential for invasion across host barriers, including the placenta, highlighting its species specificity and implications for listeriosis pathogenesis.

This study identifies the InlA–E-cadherin interaction as crucial for Listeria monocytogenes invasion of the human placenta, providing insights into mechanisms of fetoplacental listeriosis.

This review explores the survival mechanisms of Listeria monocytogenes in food production environments, focusing on stress resistance, biofilm formation, and its persistence despite sanitation measures.

This study examines the role of flagella in Listeria monocytogenes invasion, concluding that motility, not adhesion, is crucial for host cell invasion and early colonization.

This study explores Listeria monocytogenes contamination in poultry products, highlighting serotype distribution, antimicrobial resistance, and molecular subtyping methods used to track outbreaks and assess food safety.

This review discusses the genetic mechanisms behind Listeria monocytogenes resistance to LAB-produced bacteriocins, emphasizing receptor modifications and cross-resistance, and suggests strategies to counteract these challenges in food preservation.

This review explains how Listeria monocytogenes triggers and then evades macrophage autophagy, including SLAP formation that supports slow intracellular persistence.

This review explores the mechanisms of heavy metal resistance in Listeria monocytogenes, focusing on arsenic and cadmium resistance genes and their potential role in persistence and virulence in food and clinical settings.

This study analyzes antimicrobial resistance in Listeria monocytogenes isolates from clinical and food environments in France, highlighting the low prevalence of acquired resistance and the continued effectiveness of first-line treatments.

This study analyzes antimicrobial resistance in Listeria monocytogenes isolates from 2010 to 2021, finding no significant increase in resistance and highlighting key AMR genes.

This review discusses the rising antimicrobial resistance in Listeria species, focusing on their resistance mechanisms to antibiotics, biocides, and heavy metals, and their implications for food safety and public health.

This study demonstrates that gentamicin combination therapy significantly reduces 90-day mortality in patients with invasive listeriosis, especially in those with neurolisteriosis.

This study explores the persistence of Listeria monocytogenes biofilms in food industries, stressing the need for stronger hygiene protocols to prevent contamination. It highlights genetic factors that contribute to biofilm formation and resistance.

The review examines the persistence of Listeria monocytogenes biofilms in the food industry and evaluates current cleaning methods, offering insights into innovative control strategies.

This study examines pregnancy-associated listeriosis in England and Wales, exploring factors influencing pregnancy outcomes and infant survival, with a focus on maternal symptoms and timing of infection.

The paper reviews Listeria monocytogenes, its global prevalence, risk factors, and clinical management of listeriosis, with a focus on vulnerable populations.

Listeria monocytogenes is an opportunistic pathogen capable of surviving in diverse environments, including soil, water, and decaying vegetation. L. monocytogenes has the unique ability to evade the immune system by moving directly from cell to cell within the host. This intracellular lifestyle allows the bacterium to avoid extracellular immune detection, contributing to its ability to cause invasive diseases like meningitis and septicemia, particularly in the elderly and immunocompromised.

This study examines the relationship between the metal content of human milk and the infant gut microbiota, highlighting metal-induced microbial shifts and their potential impact on infant health and development.

This study investigates the buffer capacity and systems of human whole saliva, revealing the key role of bicarbonate, saliva flow rate, and pH in maintaining oral health. It provides insights into the implications for dental health and saliva analysis.

This study addresses diagnostic challenges for manganese imbalances, providing algorithms for identifying hypermanganesemia and hypomanganesemia, and offering solutions to improve clinical diagnosis, including sample handling and reference range standardization.

This study optimizes electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ETAAS) for detecting manganese in urine and blood samples, demonstrating high sensitivity and precision, and providing insights into the use of chemical modifiers for improved analysis.

This study shows that manganese bio-oxidation, facilitated by Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain MQ2, can effectively degrade antibiotics and reduce antibiotic resistance gene propagation by alleviating oxidative stress, offering new strategies for environmental antibiotic pollution control.

This study explores how heavy metals in an ecological restoration area of a manganese mining site promote the diffusion of high-risk antibiotic resistance genes and pathogens through a transmission chain involving mulberry leaves, silkworms, and soil, raising concerns for public health and environmental safety.

This review explores how environmental bacteria acquire co-resistance to heavy metals and antibiotics, revealing complex genetic interactions and co-selection mechanisms.

This study links placental manganese levels, maternal gut microbiota, and preeclampsia risk, highlighting specific bacterial genera and metabolic pathways involved. It suggests that manganese may help mitigate preeclampsia, offering new insights for therapeutic strategies targeting the gut microbiome.

This study explores the impact of metal exposure on infant gut microbiota, identifying key metals like arsenic, copper, and manganese that alter microbial diversity and specific taxa, with implications for infant health and future therapeutic strategies.

This study shows that manganese exposure triggers neuroinflammation in rats through the NLRP3 inflammasome, but fecal microbiota transplantation can alleviate these effects, suggesting microbiome-based therapies for neurotoxic and neurodegenerative diseases.

This study shows that fecal microbiome transplantation (FMT) can attenuate manganese-induced neurotoxicity by regulating the apelin signaling pathway and autophagy in the brain, offering new therapeutic insights into managing metal-induced neurodegenerative diseases.

This study shows how manganese exposure alters the gut microbiome and metabolic functions in a sex-specific manner in C57BL/6 mice. It highlights changes in neurotransmitter pathways and microbial composition that could impact brain health and suggests the need for sex-specific approaches to understanding metal toxicity.

This study identifies the MntABC manganese transporter as crucial for S. aureus survival after phagocytosis. It helps bacteria recover from oxidative stress by facilitating DNA repair through the NrdEF complex, offering new therapeutic targets to disrupt metal acquisition and combat bacterial infections.

This study uncovers the structural basis of manganese binding in the MntR regulator from Bacillus halodurans, revealing its role in bacterial manganese homeostasis. Understanding this process could inform new strategies for controlling bacterial infections by targeting metal regulation.

This study reveals how the human immune protein calprotectin (CP) sequesters zinc, facilitating manganese binding to bacterial solute-binding proteins. This interaction prevents zinc toxicity and supports bacterial virulence, offering new insights into metal ion competition between host and pathogen.

This review examines how iron, copper, zinc, and manganese affect gut microbiota composition and function, highlighting their regulatory role in health and disease. It discusses both the effects of metal deficiencies and supplementation on microbial balance and associated health outcomes.

This study maps the metallophore synthesis and uptake potential across the Staphylococcus genus, revealing species-specific production and utilization of metallophores. These findings provide insights into microbial cooperation, competition, and potential therapeutic targets for infections caused by S. aureus and other staphylococcal species.

This study reveals how S. aureus uses staphylopine (StP) to acquire transition metals, with CntA playing a central role in metal recognition and transport. The findings highlight new potential therapeutic targets to disrupt metal acquisition and reduce bacterial virulence.

This study reveals that the ArlRS two-component system in S. aureus enables resistance to host-imposed manganese starvation by modulating metabolism, particularly by promoting amino acid utilization. These findings provide insights into how bacterial metabolic flexibility aids in overcoming nutritional immunity and suggest potential therapeutic targets.

This study reveals that S. aureus uses the Cnt-StP system to acquire zinc during infection, enabling it to compete with the host’s immune defenses. This zinc acquisition pathway is critical for pathogen survival and virulence, offering new targets for antimicrobial therapy.

This review summarizes bacterial Mn sensing and homeostasis mechanisms, highlighting key regulators like MntR and the yybP-ykoY riboswitch. It discusses newly identified Mn exporters and their roles in protecting against Mn toxicity, with implications for antimicrobial strategies targeting bacterial metal regulation.

This study examines the roles of MntS and MntP in regulating manganese levels in E. coli, highlighting their importance in preventing manganese toxicity and supporting enzyme activation. The findings offer insights into bacterial metal homeostasis and potential therapeutic strategies targeting manganese regulation in pathogens.

This study explores how the MntR metalloregulator in Bacillus subtilis coordinates Mn(II) uptake and efflux systems to maintain Mn homeostasis and prevent toxicity, offering insights into bacterial metal regulation and potential therapeutic targets for controlling metal imbalance in infections.

This study identifies the essential roles of manganese and iron transporters (mntH, sitABCD, and feoB) in Salmonella enterica Typhimurium virulence. These transporters are required for bacterial survival inside macrophages and for successful infection, highlighting potential targets for antimicrobial therapy.

What was reviewed?This review provides an in-depth analysis of the speciation and fractionation of manganese (Mn) across various environmental and biological matrices, including water, soil, plants, animals, and polluted environments. It discusses the methods used for manganese determination, such as extraction techniques, spectroscopic methods, and the challenges associated with analyzing manganese species in complex matrices.Who […]

This study highlights the role of MntE in Mn detoxification and its crucial impact on S. aureus’s resistance to oxidative stress and virulence. Disrupting MntE leads to Mn accumulation, reduced fitness, and increased sensitivity to host immune responses, suggesting MntE as a potential antimicrobial target.

This study highlights calprotectin’s role in sequestering manganese and zinc to disrupt bacterial superoxide defenses, making S. aureus more vulnerable to neutrophil-mediated killing, providing insights into potential therapeutic strategies targeting bacterial metal acquisition.

This review examines the essential role of manganese in human health, highlighting its involvement in enzyme activation and neurotransmitter function. It underscores the dangers of Mn dysregulation, especially its link to neurodegenerative diseases, and advocates for better monitoring and prevention strategies for Mn toxicity.

Manganese plays a pivotal role in microbial pathogenesis. As a vital cofactor for enzymes involved in antioxidant defense and metabolism, manganese is essential for pathogens, enabling them to survive within the host. However, when not properly managed, manganese can become toxic to both the host and the pathogen. The host’s immune system, through mechanisms like the secretion of calprotectin, tries to limit microbial access to manganese, creating an ongoing battle between host defenses and microbial survival .

This review explains why magnesium deficiency is common and overlooked in blood cancers. It links magnesium to immune control of EBV, inflammation, and DNA repair pathways, and it highlights XMEN disease as proof that impaired magnesium transport can raise lymphoma risk.

This review explains why magnesium testing often misses true deficiency, especially in critical illness. It compares blood and urine methods, highlights drug-related magnesium loss, and shows how urine indices and free magnesium may improve diagnosis and treatment decisions.

This review explains how magnesium supports immune signaling and controls inflammation. It links magnesium deficiency to higher cytokine activity, oxidative stress, infection risk, and cancer progression. It also highlights magnesium-dependent T-cell function pathways and notes that microbiome links appear through inflammaging, not consistent taxa signatures.

This review links magnesium, especially magnesium orotate, to gut–brain axis modulation in functional GI disorders with anxiety or depression. It summarizes evidence that magnesium status can shift microbiome diversity, inflammation, and neuroactive pathways, and it highlights early pilot work combining magnesium orotate with SSRIs and probiotics.

This trial shows magnesium supplementation changes colorectal-adjacent microbes in a TRPM7 genotype-dependent way, especially in rectal swabs. In people with typical TRPM7 function, magnesium increased Carnobacterium maltaromaticum and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, microbes linked to local vitamin D activity.

This study shows that Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus can internalize magnesium from its environment, making it a potential probiotic carrier for improving magnesium absorption in the gut. The findings suggest that this could address magnesium deficiency through nutribiotic strategies.

This study explores how dietary magnesium supplementation can alleviate murine colitis by modulating the gut microbiota, improving microbiota richness, and reducing inflammation.

What was studied?This study examined the role of metals in regulating antibiotic resistance in bacteria, particularly focusing on how metals, such as copper, zinc, and iron, can induce resistance mechanisms against antibiotics. The research explored various mechanisms like co-resistance, cross-resistance, and co-regulation, shedding light on how metal ions act as signals to induce antibiotic resistance […]

Magnesium restriction in mice caused hypomagnesemia, increased inflammation, and altered the gut microbiome. These changes impacted immune function and highlighted the importance of magnesium in maintaining gut health and immune homeostasis.

Magnesium influences bacterial phenotypic resistance by modulating fatty acid and phospholipid metabolism in Vibrio species, leading to reduced antibiotic uptake and increased resistance to drugs like balofloxacin.

This study shows that combining resistant dextrin with low-dose magnesium oxide increases SCFA and lactic acid production by gut microbiota, improving gut health.