What do vitamins do? Do microbes need vitamins?
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The definition of a vitamin is sort of made by exclusion. It’s any chemical that your body requires to live but can’t make on its own that *isn’t* one of the macronutrients (carbs, fat, protein) but is more complex than a simple “mineral” (sodium, potassium, iron, zinc, etc).
They are species dependent. For example, cats make their own Vitamin C, but they can’t make taurine on their own. Humans can make their own taurine but can’t make vitamin C.
So each bacteria species might have its own specific required chemistry to get from the environment that would count as a vitamin, and at least a few do have those needs. But they won’t necessarily line up with human vitamins in any way.
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