Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

GUT MICROBIOTA

Gut bacteria go on record

Microbiota profiling using stool samples is limited in its ability to represent intestinal microbial dynamics. CRISPR-engineered bacteria can be used to acquire cellular RNAs and create a gene expression ‘memory’ during gastrointestinal transit, with the potential to capture microbial transcriptomic changes in the gastrointestinal tract without invasive sampling.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Experimental use cases of Record-seq in the gut microbiome.

References

  1. Donaldson, G. P., Lee, S. M. & Mazmanian, S. K. Gut biogeography of the bacterial microbiota. Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 14, 20–32 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Tropini, C., Earle, K. A., Huang, K. C. & Sonnenburg, J. L. The gut microbiome: connecting spatial organization to function. Cell Host Microbe 21, 433–442 (2017).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Zmora, N. et al. Personalized gut mucosal colonization resistance to empiric probiotics is associated with unique host and microbiome features. Cell 174, 1388–1405.e21 (2018).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Olsson, L. M. et al. Dynamics of the normal gut microbiota: a longitudinal one-year population study in Sweden. Cell Host Microbe 30, 726–739.e3 (2022).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Montassier, E. et al. Probiotics impact the antibiotic resistance gene reservoir along the human GI tract in a person-specific and antibiotic-dependent manner. Nat. Microbiol. 6, 1043–1054 (2021).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Schmidt, F. et al. Noninvasive assessment of gut function using transcriptional recording sentinel cells. Science 376, eabm6038 (2022).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Schmidt, F., Cherepkova, M. Y. & Platt, R. J. Transcriptional recording by CRISPR spacer acquisition from RNA. Nature 562, 380–385 (2018).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Tanna, T., Schmidt, F., Cherepkova, M. Y., Okoniewski, M. & Platt, R. J. Recording transcriptional histories using Record-seq. Nat. Protoc. 15, 513–539 (2020).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Jin, W.-B. et al. Genetic manipulation of gut microbes enables single-gene interrogation in a complex microbiome. Cell 185, 547–562.e22 (2022).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Sheth, R. U., Yim, S. S., Wu, F. L. & Wang, H. H. Multiplex recording of cellular events over time on CRISPR biological tape. Science 358, 1457–1461 (2017).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jotham Suez.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Crits-Christoph, A., Suez, J. Gut bacteria go on record. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 19, 557–558 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41575-022-00653-3

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41575-022-00653-3

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing