The abundance and variety of carbohydrate-active enzymes in the human gut microbiota

The human genome encodes very few enzymes involved in the digestion of complex polysaccharides, and this deficit is compensated for by the myriad of carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) encoded by members of the gut microbiome. In this Analysis article, Henrissat and colleagues characterize the CAZymes present in a representative human mini-microbiome.