![Dr Sylvia Duncan Dr Sylvia Duncan](/img/200x200/staffpages/uploads/rwt096/S_Duncan_photo.jpg)
BSc PhD
Senior Research Fellow
- About
-
- Email Address
- sylvia.duncan@abdn.ac.uk
- Telephone Number
- +44 (0)1224 438680
- Office Address
Rowett Institute
Forresterhill Campus
Aberdeen
AB25 2ZD
- School/Department
- School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition
- 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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Impact of diet and individual variation on intestinal microbiota composition and fermentation products in obese men
The ISME Journal, vol. 8, pp. 2218-2230Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2014.63
Complete genome of a new Firmicutes species belonging to the dominant human colonic microbiota (“Ruminococcus bicirculans”) reveals two chromosomes and a selective capacity to utilize plant glucans
Environmental Microbiology, vol. 16, no. 9, pp. 2879-2890Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.12217
Rumen cellulosomics: divergent fiber-degrading strategies revealed by comparative genome-wide analysis of six ruminococcal strains
PloS ONE, vol. 9, no. 7, e99221Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0099221
- [OPEN ACCESS] http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/3992/1/Rumen_cellulosomics.pdf
Phylogenetic distribution of three pathways for propionate production within the human gut microbiota
The ISME Journal, vol. 8, no. 6, pp. 1323-1335Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2014.48
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Mucosa-associated Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and Escherichia coli co-abundance can distinguish Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Inflammatory Bowel Disease phenotypes
International Journal of Medical Microbiology: IJMM, vol. 304, no. 3-4, pp. 464-475Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmm.2014.02.009
Phylogeny, culturing, and metagenomics of the human gut microbiota
Trends in Microbiology, vol. 22, no. 5, pp. 267-274Contributions to Journals: Literature Reviews- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2014.03.001
Bacteroides and Prevotella
Encyclopedia of Food Microbiology: Second Edition. Elsevier Inc., pp. 203-208, 6 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-384730-0.00031-8
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Functional genomics reveals that Clostridium difficile Spo0A coordinates sporulation, virulence and metabolism
BMC Genomics, vol. 15, 160Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-15-160
- [OPEN ACCESS] http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/3864/1/Functional_genomics.pdf
The impact of different DNA extraction kits and laboratories upon the assessment of human gut microbiota composition by 16S rRNA gene sequencing
PloS ONE, vol. 9, no. 2, e88982Contributions to Journals: ArticlesPrebiotic stimulation of human colonic butyrate-producing bacteria and bifidobacteria, in vitro
FEMS Microbiology Ecology, vol. 87, no. 1, pp. 30-40Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1574-6941.12186