Speaker: Prof. Roktaek Lim

Title: Large-scale Metabolic Interaction Network of the Mouse and Human Gut Microbiota

Affiliation: Department of Physics, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, Republic of Korea

Hosted by Dieckmann Unit

Venue: L4E01, Lab 4

*Zoom is available: https://oist.zoom.us/j/93583000718?pwd=iRgWdqoenZG9FozTH3j2tWxxogwJim.1 

Abstract:

The role of our gut microbiota in health and disease is largely attributed to the collective metabolic activities of the inhabitant microbes. A system-level framework of the microbial community structure, mediated through metabolite transport, would provide important insights into the complex microbe-microbe and host-microbe chemical interactions. This framework, if adaptable to both mouse and human systems, would be useful for mechanistic interpretations of the vast amounts of experimental data from gut microbiomes in murine animal models, whether humanized or not. We constructed a literature-curated, interspecies network of the mammalian gut microbiota for mouse and human hosts. This network is an extensive data resource, encompassing 838 microbial species (766 bacteria, 53 archaea, and 19 eukaryotes) and 6 host cell types, interacting through 8,224 small-molecule transport and macromolecule degradation events. Moreover, we compiled 912 negative associations between organisms and metabolic compounds that are not transportable or degradable by those organisms. Our network may facilitate experimental and computational endeavors for the mechanistic investigations of host-associated microbial communities.

Biosketch:

Dr. Roktaek Lim received his B.Sc. degree in Astronomy from Seoul National University in 2008 and his Ph.D. degree in Computational Science and Technology from Seoul National University in 2014. He is currently an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Physics at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology. His research interests include multiscale computations, mathematical modeling of the human gut microbiome, and high-performance computing.