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The genetic composition of Oxalobacter formigenes and its relationship to colonization and calcium oxalate stone disease

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Abstract

Oxalobacter formigenes is a unique intestinal organism that relies on oxalate degradation to meet most of its energy and carbon needs. A lack of colonization is a risk factor for calcium oxalate stone disease. Protection against calcium oxalate stone disease appears to be due to the oxalate degradation that occurs in the gut on low calcium diets with a possible further contribution from intestinal oxalate secretion. Much remains to be learned about how the organism establishes and maintains gut colonization and the precise mechanisms by which it modifies stone risk. The sequencing and annotation of the genomes of a Group 1 and a Group 2 strain of O. formigenes should provide the informatic tools required for the identification of the genes and pathways associated with colonization and survival. In this review we have identified genes that may be involved and where appropriate suggested how they may be important in calcium oxalate stone disease. Elaborating the functional roles of these genes should accelerate our understanding of the organism and clarify its role in preventing stone formation.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by NIH grants DK087967 and DK062284. The “Oxalobacter formigenes Sequencing Project, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT (http://www.broadinstitute.org/)” and the Integrated Microbial Genomes (IMG) system, supported by the NIH Human Microbiome Project, were used for genomic data analysis.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, KAUL 816, 1720 2nd Av. S, Birmingham, AL, USA

    John Knight, Dean G. Assimos & Ross P. Holmes

  2. Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Wake Forest Baptist Health, Winston-Salem, NC, USA

    Rajendar Deora

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  1. John Knight
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  3. Dean G. Assimos
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Correspondence to John Knight.

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Knight, J., Deora, R., Assimos, D.G. et al. The genetic composition of Oxalobacter formigenes and its relationship to colonization and calcium oxalate stone disease. Urolithiasis 41, 187–196 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00240-013-0566-7

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