1 Engineering a surface endogalactanase into Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron confers 2 keystone status for arabinogalactan degradation 3 4 Alan Cartmell1¶, Jose Muñoz-Muñoz1,2¶, Jonathon Briggs1¶, Didier A. Ndeh1¶, Elisabeth C. 5 Lowe1, Arnaud Baslé1, Nicolas Terrapon3, Katherine Stott4, Tiaan Heunis1, Joe Gray1, Li Yu4, 6 Paul Dupree4, Pearl Z. Fernandes5, Sayali Shah5, Spencer J. Williams5, Aurore Labourel1, 7 Matthias Trost1, Bernard Henrissat3,6,7 and Harry J. Gilbert1,* 8 9 1Institute for Cell and Molecular Biosciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne 10 NE2 4HH, U.K. 11 12 2Department of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, 13 Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST, UK. 14 15 3Architecture et Fonction des Macromolécules Biologiques, Centre National de la Recherche 16 Scientifique (CNRS), Aix-Marseille University, F-13288 Marseille, France 17 18 4Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 1QW, U.K. 19 20 5School of Chemistry and Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute, 21 University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia 22 23 6INRA, USC 1408 AFMB, F-13288 Marseille, France 24 25 7Department of Biological Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia 26 27 ¶These authors contributed equally. 28 29 *To whom correspondence should be addressed: Harry J. Gilbert (
[email protected]), 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 1 40 41 42 Abstract 43 Glycans are major nutrients for the human gut microbiota (HGM). Arabinogalactan 44 proteins (AGPs) comprise a heterogenous group of plant glycans in which a β1,3- 45 galactan backbone and β1,6-galactan side chains are conserved.