The curious case of Prevotella copri

ABSTRACT

Prevotella copri is an abundant member of the human gastrointestinal microbiome, whose relative abundance has curiously been associated with positive and negative impacts on diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis. Yet, the verdict is still out on the definitive role of P. copri in human health, and on the effect of different diets on its relative abundance in the gut microbiome. The puzzling discrepancies among P. copri studies have only recently been attributed to the diversity of its strains, which substantially differ in their encoded metabolic patterns from the commonly used reference strain. However, such strain differences cannot be resolved by common 16S rRNA amplicon profiling methods. Here, we scrutinize P. copri, its versatile metabolic potential, and the hypotheses behind the conflicting observations on its association with diet and human health. We also provide suggestions for designing studies and bioinformatics pipelines to better research P. copri.

Keywords:

• microbiome
• diet
• metabolism
• genomic variation
• pharmacomicrobiomics
• toxicomicrobiomics
• polysaccharide utilization loci
• study design

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Abbreviations

AS: Ankylosing spondylitis; ASD: Autism spectrum disorders; BCAAs: Branched-chain amino acids; BKB: Barley kernel-based bread; CU: Chronic urticaria; DHF: Dihydrofolate reductase; DMARDs: Disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs; GLP-1 RA: Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist; GO: Graves’ orbitopathy; HIV: Human immunodeficiency virus; L-DOPA: l-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine or Levodopa; LPS: Lipopolysaccharides; MG: Myasthenia gravis; MTX: Methotrexate; NAFLD: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease; NASH: Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis; NORA: New-onset untreated rheumatoid arthritis; OA: Osteoarthritis; PD: Parkinson’s disease; PSC-IBD: Primary sclerosing cholangitis-inflammatory bowel disease; RA: Rheumatoid arthritis; SCFAs: Short-chain fatty Acids; T1D: Type 1 diabetes; T2D: Type 2 diabetes; TRAb: Thyrotropin receptor autoantibody

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.