Segmented filamentous bacteria or '' Candidatus'' Savagella are members of the

gut microbiota Gut microbiota, gut microbiome, or gut flora, are the microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses that live in the digestive tracts of animals. The gastrointestinal metagenome is the aggregate of all the genomes of the gut m ...

of rodents, fish and chickens, and have been shown to potently induce immune responses in mice. They form a distinct lineage within the Clostridiaceae and the name ''Candidatus'' Savagella has been proposed for this lineage. They were previously named ''Candidatus'' Arthromitus because of their morphological resemblance to bacterial filaments previously observed in the guts of insects by Joseph Leidy. Despite the fact that they have been widely referred to as segmented filamentous bacteria, this term is somewhat problematic as it does not allow one to distinguish between bacteria that colonize various hosts or even if segmented

filamentous The word filament, which is descended from Latin ''filum'' meaning " thread", is used in English for a variety of thread-like structures, including: Astronomy * Galaxy filament, the largest known cosmic structures in the universe * Solar filament ...

bacteria are actually several different bacterial species. In mice, these bacteria grow primarily in the terminal ileum in close proximity to the intestinal epithelium where they are thought to help induce T helper 17 cell responses. Intriguingly, Segmented Filamentous Bacteria were found to expand in AID-deficient mice, which lack the ability to mount an appropriate humoral immune response because of impaired somatic hypermutation; parabiotic experiments revealed the importance of IgA in eliminating Segmented Filamentous Bacteria. This goes hand in hand with an earlier study demonstrating the ability of monocolonization with Segmented Filamentous Bacteria to dramatically increase mucosal

IgA Iga may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Ambush at Iga Pass, a 1958 Japanese film * Iga no Kagemaru, Japanese manga series * Iga, a set of characters from the Japanese novel '' The Kouga Ninja Scrolls'' Biology * ''Iga'' (beetle), a gen ...

levels. Segmented Filamentous Bacteria are species specific, and may be important to immune development.

References

*Gut Immune Maturation Depends on Colonization with a Host-Specific Microbiota (Cell Volume 149, Issue 7 2012 1578 – 1593)

See also

References

Further reading