The vitamin B12 family of molecules (cobamides) is not only required by humans, but also by nearly all bacteria. However, only a subset of bacteria can synthesize them, so cobamides are important shared nutrients in microbial communities. Cobamides are unique among vitamins in terms of their structural diversity, with nearly twenty different forms found naturally. Here, by testing a number of model bacteria and comparing the results to previous studies, we found that cobamide preferences and requirements vary broadly across bacteria, as well as in cobamide-dependent pathways within the same organism. This work highlights that understanding individual cobamide preferences of bacteria will be necessary to understand the critical function of these vitamins in microbial communities. Link to paper: https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/msystems.01407-24
University of California, Berkeley | Plant & Microbial Biology