Bile Salt Hydrolases with Extended Substrate Specificity Confer a High Level of Resistance to Bile Toxicity on Atopobiaceae Bacteria

The bile resistance of intestinal bacteria is among the key factors responsible for their successful colonization of and survival in the mammalian gastrointestinal tract. In this study, we demonstrated that lactate-producing Atopobiaceae bacteria (Leptogranulimonas caecicola TOC12T and Granulimonas faecalis OPF53T) isolated from mouse intestine showed high resistance to mammalian bile extracts, due to significant bile salt hydrolase (BSH) activity. We further succeeded in isolating BSH proteins (designated LcBSH and GfBSH) from L. caecicola TOC12T and G. faecalis OPF53T, respectively, and characterized their enzymatic features. Interestingly, recombinant LcBSH and GfBSH proteins exhibited BSH activity against 12 conjugated bile salts, indicating that LcBSH and GfBSH have much broader substrate specificity than the previously identified BSHs from lactic acid bacteria, which are generally known to hydrolyze six bile salt isomers. Phylogenetic analysis showed that LcBSH and GfBSH had no affinities with any known BSH subgroup and constituted a new BSH subgroup in the phylogeny. In summary, we discovered functional BSHs with broad substrate specificity from Atopobiaceae bacteria and demonstrated that these BSH enzymes confer bile resistance to L. caecicola TOC12T and G. faecalis OPF53T.