Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
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.
In this Analysis article, Morris and Schmidt report the results of surveys searching for high-affinity terminal oxidase genes in sequenced bacterial genomes and shotgun metagenomes. They find that bacteria with the potential to respire under microoxic conditions are phylogenetically diverse and intriguingly widespread in nature, and go on to highlight the importance of microaerobic metabolism in host-associated bacteria.