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Geerlings et al. Microbiome Res Rep 2024;3:36 Microbiome Research
DOI: 10.20517/mrr.2024.06
Reports

Original Article Open Access

Omics-based analysis of Akkermansia muciniphila
cultivation in food-grade media

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Sharon Y. Geerlings , Kees van der Ark , Bart Nijsse , Sjef Boeren , Mark van Loosdrecht , Clara Belzer 1 ,
Willem M. de Vos 1,5
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Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University, Wageningen 6708 WE, the Netherlands.
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Laboratory of Systems and Synthetic Biology, Wageningen University, Wageningen 6708 WE, the Netherlands.
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Laboratory of Biochemistry, Wageningen University, Wageningen 6708 WE, the Netherlands.
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Department of Biotechnology, Delft University of Technology, Delft 2629 HZ, the Netherlands.
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Human Microbiome Research Program, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki 00014, Finland.
Correspondence to: Prof. Willem M. de Vos, Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University, Helix building, Stippeneng 4,
Wageningen 6708 WE, the Netherlands. E-mail: willem.devos@wur.nl
How to cite this article: Geerlings SY, van der Ark K, Nijsse B, Boeren S, van Loosdrecht M, Belzer C, de Vos WM. Omics-based
analysis of Akkermansia muciniphila cultivation in food-grade media. Microbiome Res Rep 2024;3:36. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/
mrr.2024.06
Received: 20 Jan 2024 First Decision: 29 Mar 2024 Revised: 3 Jun 2024 Accepted: 5 Jun 2024 Published: 17 Jun 2024
Academic Editor: Marco Ventura Copy Editor: Pei-Yun Wang Production Editor: Pei-Yun Wang

Abstract
Background and Aim: Over the past years, the gut microbiota and its correlation to health and disease has been
studied extensively. In terms of beneficial microbes, an increased interest in Akkermansia muciniphila
(A. muciniphila) has been observed since its discovery. Direct evidence for the role of A. muciniphila in host health
has been provided in both mice and human studies. However, for human interventions with A. muciniphila cells,
industrial-scale fermentations are needed, and hence, the used cultivation media should be free of animal-derived
components, food-grade, non-allergenic and allow for efficient growth to high densities to provide cost-effective
production platforms. In this study, we assessed the growth and performance of A. muciniphila in batch bioreactors
using newly developed plant-based media.

Methods: The bioreactors were supplemented with varying carbon sources, including different ratios of
N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) and glucose. We monitored the growth of A. muciniphila in the plant-based medium
using optical density (OD600) measurements and microscopy. In addition, we used a combination of biochemical
analysis as well as transcriptional and proteomics analysis to gain detailed insight into the physiology.

Results: Comparisons between growth on these media and that on mucin revealed differences at both

© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as
long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and
indicate if changes were made.

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