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Purpose: , a dominant and metabolically versatile gut genus. Methods: degradation assays using purified substrates. Family-specific protease inhibitors were used to confirm the major catalytic classes involved. Results: . Genomic predictions showed limited concordance with measured enzymatic activity, suggesting context-dependent regulation of ECM-degrading enzymes. Inhibitor experiments confirmed that collagen degradation is driven primarily by metalloproteases and secondarily by serine proteases across representative species. Conclusions: as a rich, yet underappreciated, source of ECMdegrading enzymes. This work underscores the need to consider microbiota as key modulators of host tissue homeostasis and potential targets for therapeutic modulation.
Azamar et al. (Thu,) studied this question.