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Holt CC, del Campo J, Keeling PJ. Source and variation of the amazing live Sea-Monkey microbiome. PLoS One 2024; 19:e0308763. [PMID: 39133745 PMCID: PMC11318892 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0308763] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2024] [Accepted: 07/30/2024] [Indexed: 08/15/2024] Open
Abstract
An embryonic diapause in unfavourable conditions has allowed brine shrimp to thrive in hypersaline environments and, unexpectedly, mail-order sachets and small, novelty tanks. Marketed as Sea-Monkeys®, each kit involves a 3-step process to generate adult Artemia within a matter of weeks. Whether these kits also allow for the maintenance of a host-associated microbiome is unclear. Therefore, comparing five replicate tanks under the same culture conditions, we sequenced the 16S ribosomal small subunit (SSU) gene to analyse bacterial community compositions in adults, their surrounding tank water, and their feed. Adult Sea-Monkeys® harboured a bacterial microbiome that was clearly distinguishable from the tank water and food. Furthermore, individual tanks had a notable effect on fine-scale microbiome variation. Several Sea-Monkey bacterial variants appeared absent in environmental samples and included genera (Leucobacter and Microbacterium) known to confer desiccation resistance in other hosts. Although Sea-Monkeys® taxonomy is unclear, phylogenetic inference of the cytochrome c oxidase I (COXI) gene from the host animal suggests Sea-Monkeys® belong to the Artemia franciscana 'superspecies'. Overall, Sea-Monkeys® kits appear to be a convenient and scalable mesocosm for the study of host-microbiome interactions and could serve as a useful tool for future invertebrate microbiome research, outreach, and education.
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Affiliation(s)
- Corey C. Holt
- Department of Botany, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
- Hakai Institute, Heriot Bay, British Columbia, Canada
| | - Javier del Campo
- Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
| | - Patrick J. Keeling
- Department of Botany, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
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Li JD, Gao YY, Stevens EJ, King KC. Dual stressors of infection and warming can destabilize host microbiomes. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2024; 379:20230069. [PMID: 38497264 PMCID: PMC10945407 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2023.0069] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/10/2023] [Accepted: 01/02/2024] [Indexed: 03/19/2024] Open
Abstract
Climate change is causing extreme heating events and intensifying infectious disease outbreaks. Animals harbour microbial communities, which are vital for their survival and fitness under stressful conditions. Understanding how microbiome structures change in response to infection and warming may be important for forecasting host performance under global change. Here, we evaluated alterations in the microbiomes of several wild Caenorhabditis elegans isolates spanning a range of latitudes, upon warming temperatures and infection by the parasite Leucobacter musarum. Using 16S rRNA sequencing, we found that microbiome diversity decreased, and dispersion increased over time, with the former being more prominent in uninfected adults and the latter aggravated by infection. Infection reduced dominance of specific microbial taxa, and increased microbiome dispersion, indicating destabilizing effects on host microbial communities. Exposing infected hosts to warming did not have an additive destabilizing effect on their microbiomes. Moreover, warming during pre-adult development alleviated the destabilizing effects of infection on host microbiomes. These results revealed an opposing interaction between biotic and abiotic factors on microbiome structure. Lastly, we showed that increased microbiome dispersion might be associated with decreased variability in microbial species interaction strength. Overall, these findings improve our understanding of animal microbiome dynamics amidst concurrent climate change and epidemics. This article is part of the theme issue 'Sculpting the microbiome: how host factors determine and respond to microbial colonization'.
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Affiliation(s)
- J. D. Li
- Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2JD, UK
| | - Y. Y. Gao
- Shenzhen Branch, Guangdong Laboratory of Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518120, People's Republic of China
- School of Ecology and Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, 35 Tsinghua East Road, Beijing 100083, People's Republic of China
| | - E. J. Stevens
- Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2JD, UK
| | - K. C. King
- Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2JD, UK
- Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, V6T 1Z4, Canada
- Department of Microbiology & Immunology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, V6T 1Z3, Canada
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3
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Hammer TJ. Why do hosts malfunction without microbes? Missing benefits versus evolutionary addiction. Trends Microbiol 2024; 32:132-141. [PMID: 37652785 DOI: 10.1016/j.tim.2023.07.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/09/2023] [Revised: 07/19/2023] [Accepted: 07/20/2023] [Indexed: 09/02/2023]
Abstract
Microbes are widely recognized to be vital to host health. This new consensus rests, in part, on experiments showing how hosts malfunction when microbes are removed. More and more microbial dependencies are being discovered, even in fundamental processes such as development, immunity, physiology, and behavior. But why do they exist? The default explanation is that microbes are beneficial; when hosts lose microbes, they also lose benefits. Here I call attention to evolutionary addiction, whereby a host trait evolves a need for microbes without having been improved by them. Evolutionary addiction should be considered when interpreting microbe-removal experiments, as it is a distinct and potentially common process. Further, it may have unique implications for the evolution and stability of host-microbe interactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tobin J Hammer
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.
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Santos J, Matos M, Flatt T, Chelo IM. Microbes are potential key players in the evolution of life histories and aging in Caenorhabditis elegans. Ecol Evol 2023; 13:e10537. [PMID: 37753311 PMCID: PMC10518755 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.10537] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/21/2023] [Revised: 08/07/2023] [Accepted: 09/01/2023] [Indexed: 09/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Microbes can have profound effects on host fitness and health and the appearance of late-onset diseases. Host-microbe interactions thus represent a major environmental context for healthy aging of the host and might also mediate trade-offs between life-history traits in the evolution of host senescence. Here, we have used the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans to study how host-microbe interactions may modulate the evolution of life histories and aging. We first characterized the effects of two non-pathogenic and one pathogenic Escherichia coli strains, together with the pathogenic Serratia marcescens DB11 strain, on population growth rates and survival of C. elegans from five different genetic backgrounds. We then focused on an outbred C. elegans population, to understand if microbe-specific effects on the reproductive schedule and in traits such as developmental rate and survival were also expressed in the presence of males and standing genetic variation, which could be relevant for the evolution of C. elegans and other nematode species in nature. Our results show that host-microbe interactions have a substantial host-genotype-dependent impact on the reproductive aging and survival of the nematode host. Although both pathogenic bacteria reduced host survival in comparison with benign strains, they differed in how they affected other host traits. Host fertility and population growth rate were affected by S. marcescens DB11 only during early adulthood, whereas this occurred at later ages with the pathogenic E. coli IAI1. In both cases, these effects were largely dependent on the host genotypes. Given such microbe-specific genotypic differences in host life history, we predict that the evolution of reproductive schedules and senescence might be critically contingent on host-microbe interactions in nature.
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Affiliation(s)
- Josiane Santos
- cE3c – Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes & CHANGE – Global Change and Sustainability InstituteLisboaPortugal
- Departamento de Biologia Animal, Faculdade de CiênciasUniversidade de LisboaLisboaPortugal
| | - Margarida Matos
- cE3c – Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes & CHANGE – Global Change and Sustainability InstituteLisboaPortugal
- Departamento de Biologia Animal, Faculdade de CiênciasUniversidade de LisboaLisboaPortugal
| | - Thomas Flatt
- Department of BiologyUniversity of FribourgFribourgSwitzerland
| | - Ivo M. Chelo
- cE3c – Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes & CHANGE – Global Change and Sustainability InstituteLisboaPortugal
- Departamento de Biologia Animal, Faculdade de CiênciasUniversidade de LisboaLisboaPortugal
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Wu-Chuang A, Bates KA, Obregon D, Estrada-Peña A, King KC, Cabezas-Cruz A. Rapid evolution of a novel protective symbiont into keystone taxon in Caenorhabditis elegans microbiota. Sci Rep 2022; 12:14045. [PMID: 35982076 PMCID: PMC9388637 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-18269-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/01/2022] [Accepted: 08/08/2022] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Protective microbes have a major role in shaping host-pathogen interactions, but their relative importance in the structure of the host microbiota remains unclear. Here, we used a network approach to characterize the impact of a novel, experimentally evolved 'protective microbial symbiont' (Enterococcus faecalis) on the structure and predicted function of the natural microbiota of the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans. We used microbial network analysis to identify keystone taxa and describe the hierarchical placement of protective and non-protective symbionts in the microbiota. We found that early colonization with symbionts produce statistically significant changes in the structure of the community. Notably, only the protective E. faecalis became a keystone taxon in the nematode microbiota. Non-protective lineages of the same bacterial species remained comparatively unimportant to the community. Prediction of functional profiles in bacterial communities using PICRUSt2 showed that the presence of highly protective E. faecalis decreased the abundance of ergothioneine (EGT) biosynthesis pathway involved in the synthesis of the antioxidant molecule EGT, a potential public good. These data show that in addition to direct antagonism with virulent pathogens, keystone protective symbionts are linked to modified bacterial community structure and possible reductions in public goods, potentially driving decreased antioxidant defense. We suggest that this response could suppress infection via wholesale microbial community changes to further benefit the host. These findings extend the concept of protective symbionts beyond bodyguards to ecosystem engineers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alejandra Wu-Chuang
- Anses, INRAE, Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire d'Alfort, UMR BIPAR, Laboratoire de Santé Animale, 94700, Maisons-Alfort, France
| | - Kieran A Bates
- Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3SZ, UK
| | - Dasiel Obregon
- School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada
| | | | - Kayla C King
- Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3SZ, UK.
| | - Alejandro Cabezas-Cruz
- Anses, INRAE, Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire d'Alfort, UMR BIPAR, Laboratoire de Santé Animale, 94700, Maisons-Alfort, France.
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Bates KA, Sommer U, Hopkins KP, Shelton JMG, Wierzbicki C, Sergeant C, Tapley B, Michaels CJ, Schmeller DS, Loyau A, Bosch J, Viant MR, Harrison XA, Garner TWJ, Fisher MC. Microbiome function predicts amphibian chytridiomycosis disease dynamics. MICROBIOME 2022; 10:44. [PMID: 35272699 PMCID: PMC8908643 DOI: 10.1186/s40168-021-01215-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2021] [Accepted: 12/10/2021] [Indexed: 05/07/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND The fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) threatens amphibian biodiversity and ecosystem stability worldwide. Amphibian skin microbial community structure has been linked to the clinical outcome of Bd infections, yet its overall functional importance is poorly understood. METHODS Microbiome taxonomic and functional profiles were assessed using high-throughput bacterial 16S rRNA and fungal ITS2 gene sequencing, bacterial shotgun metagenomics and skin mucosal metabolomics. We sampled 56 wild midwife toads (Alytes obstetricans) from montane populations exhibiting Bd epizootic or enzootic disease dynamics. In addition, to assess whether disease-specific microbiome profiles were linked to microbe-mediated protection or Bd-induced perturbation, we performed a laboratory Bd challenge experiment whereby 40 young adult A. obstetricans were exposed to Bd or a control sham infection. We measured temporal changes in the microbiome as well as functional profiles of Bd-exposed and control animals at peak infection. RESULTS Microbiome community structure and function differed in wild populations based on infection history and in experimental control versus Bd-exposed animals. Bd exposure in the laboratory resulted in dynamic changes in microbiome community structure and functional differences, with infection clearance in all but one infected animal. Sphingobacterium, Stenotrophomonas and an unclassified Commamonadaceae were associated with wild epizootic dynamics and also had reduced abundance in laboratory Bd-exposed animals that cleared infection, indicating a negative association with Bd resistance. This was further supported by microbe-metabolite integration which identified functionally relevant taxa driving disease outcome, of which Sphingobacterium and Bd were most influential in wild epizootic dynamics. The strong correlation between microbial taxonomic community composition and skin metabolome in the laboratory and field is inconsistent with microbial functional redundancy, indicating that differences in microbial taxonomy drive functional variation. Shotgun metagenomic analyses support these findings, with similar disease-associated patterns in beta diversity. Analysis of differentially abundant bacterial genes and pathways indicated that bacterial environmental sensing and Bd resource competition are likely to be important in driving infection outcomes. CONCLUSIONS Bd infection drives altered microbiome taxonomic and functional profiles across laboratory and field environments. Our application of multi-omics analyses in experimental and field settings robustly predicts Bd disease dynamics and identifies novel candidate biomarkers of infection. Video Abstract.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kieran A Bates
- Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, 11a Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3SZ, UK.
- MRC Centre for GlobaI Infectious Disease Analysis, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, W2 1PG, UK.
- Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London, NW1 4RY, UK.
| | - Ulf Sommer
- NERC Biomolecular Analysis Facility - Metabolomics Node (NBAF-B), School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
| | - Kevin P Hopkins
- Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London, NW1 4RY, UK
| | - Jennifer M G Shelton
- MRC Centre for GlobaI Infectious Disease Analysis, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, W2 1PG, UK
| | - Claudia Wierzbicki
- MRC Centre for GlobaI Infectious Disease Analysis, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, W2 1PG, UK
| | - Christopher Sergeant
- Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London, NW1 4RY, UK
| | - Benjamin Tapley
- ZSL London Zoo, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London, NW1 4RY, UK
| | | | - Dirk S Schmeller
- Laboratoire Écologie Fonctionnelle et Environnement, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, Toulouse INP, Université Toulouse 3 - Paul Sabatier (UPS), Toulouse, France
| | - Adeline Loyau
- Department of Experimental Limnology, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Alte Fischerhütte 2, 16775, Stechlin, Germany
| | - Jaime Bosch
- IMIB Biodiversity Research Institute (CSIC-University of Oviedo), 33600, Mieres, Spain
| | - Mark R Viant
- NERC Biomolecular Analysis Facility - Metabolomics Node (NBAF-B), School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
| | - Xavier A Harrison
- Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London, NW1 4RY, UK
- Biosciences, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4DQ, UK
| | - Trenton W J Garner
- Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London, NW1 4RY, UK
| | - Matthew C Fisher
- MRC Centre for GlobaI Infectious Disease Analysis, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, W2 1PG, UK
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7
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Bates KA, King KC. Leucobacter. Trends Microbiol 2021; 29:1046-1047. [PMID: 34304971 DOI: 10.1016/j.tim.2021.06.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2021] [Revised: 06/21/2021] [Accepted: 06/22/2021] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Kieran A Bates
- Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, 11a Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3SZ, UK.
| | - Kayla C King
- Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, 11a Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3SZ, UK
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