
Dr Sylvia Duncan
BSc PhD
Senior Research Fellow
- About
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Rowett Institute
Forresterhill Campus
Aberdeen
AB25 2ZD
- Research
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Research Overview
The Microbiology group have isolated and characterised many of the most abundant bacterial species that inhabit the human large intestine. A panel of the most interesting strains have also been genome sequenced. Mining these genomes has led to a good understanding of the roles of these mostly anaerobic bacteria in the human colon including their primary metabolic function, such as the formation of short chain fatty acids.
Research team:
Amanda Morris – Research Assistant
Galiana Lo - PhD student
Dr Indrani Mukhopadhya – Research Fellow
Research Areas
Nutrition and Health
Research Specialisms
- Microbiology
Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
Current Research
My current research is focussed on the impact of dietary macronutrients, including protein and carbohydrate content, on modulating the composition of the gut microbiota and metabolic outputs to improve health and prevent disease. The impact of gut environmental factors, including pH and bile salt levels, on modulating the gut microbiota and metabolism are also being studied using in vitro model colonic fermentor systems. We are also interested in bacterial cross feeding of dietary macronutrients by specialist bacterial species. We are also interested lactic acid utilising bacterial species as this is a product that is usually low in healthy colons but can accumulate to high levels in disease states such as inflammatory bowel disease. Further studies are also underway on host-microbe interactions.
More recently, the formation of secondary metabolites, such as polyketides and non-ribosomally synthesised peptides, by gut anaerobes are being studied through genome mining strains, testing their ability to inhibit pathogens and identifying the structure of these peptides as these are potentially pharmaceutically important compounds that may possess anti-microbial and anti-cancer properties.
- Teaching
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Teaching Responsibilities
Course Coordinator MC4014
Contribute lectures and tutorials to Nutrition courses
- Publications
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Microbial lactate utilisation and the stability of the gut microbiome
Gut MicrobiomeContributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/gmb.2022.3
Distribution, organization and expression of genes concerned with anaerobic lactate utilization in human intestinal bacteria
Microbial GenomicsContributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.000739
Dietary fibre complexity and its influence on functional groups of the human gut microbiota
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, vol. 80, no. 4, pp. 386–397Contributions to Journals: ArticlesHigh throughput method development and optimised production of leaf protein concentrates with potential to support the agri-industry
Journal of Food Measurement and CharacterizationContributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11694-021-01136-w
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Description of Ruminococcoides bili gen. nov., sp. nov., a bile resistant bacterium from human bile with autolytic behavior.
International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, vol. 71, no. 8Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1099/ijsem.0.004960
Human gut Faecalibacterium prausnitzii deploy a highly efficient conserved system to cross-feed on β-mannan-derived oligosaccharides
mBio, vol. 12, no. 3, e03628-20Contributions to Journals: ArticlesImpact of protein on the composition and metabolism of the human gut microbiota and health
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, vol. 80, no. 2, pp. 173 - 185Contributions to Journals: ArticlesRelative abundance of the Prevotella genus within the human gut microbiota of elderly volunteers determines the inter-individual responses to dietary supplementation with wheat bran arabinoxylan-oligosaccharides
BioMed Central Microbiology, vol. 20, 283Contributions to Journals: ArticlesPivotal roles for pH, lactate and lactate-utilizing bacteria in the stability of a human colonic microbial ecosystem
mSystems, vol. 5, no. 5, e00645-20Contributions to Journals: ArticlesComparative genetic and physiological characterisation of Pectinatus species reveals shared tolerance to beer-associated stressors but halotolerance specific to pickle-associated strains
Food Microbiology, vol. 90, 103462Contributions to Journals: Articles