TY - JOUR
T1 - Microbial Response to Fungal Infection in a Fungus-Growing Termite, Odontotermes formosanus (Shiraki)
AU - Wu, Chen Yu
AU - Meng, Jing
AU - Merchant, Austin
AU - Zhang, Yi Xiang
AU - Li, Mu Wang
AU - Zhou, Xu Guo
AU - Wang, Qian
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2021 Wu, Meng, Merchant, Zhang, Li, Zhou and Wang.
PY - 2021/11/22
Y1 - 2021/11/22
N2 - The crosstalk between gut microbiota and host immunity has emerged as one of the research foci of microbiome studies in recent years. The purpose of this study was to determine how gut microbes respond to fungal infection in termites, given their reliance on gut symbionts for food intake as well as maintaining host health. Here, we used Metarhizium robertsii, an entomopathogenic fungus, to infect Odontotermes formosanus, a fungus-growing termite in the family Termitidae, and documented changes in host gut microbiota via a combination of bacterial 16S rDNA sequencing, metagenomic shotgun sequencing, and transmission electron microscopy. Our analyses found that when challenged with Metarhizium, the termite gut showed reduced microbial diversity within the first 12 h of fungal infection and then recovered and even surpassed pre-infection flora levels. These combined results shed light on the role of gut flora in maintaining homeostasis and immune homeostasis in the host, and the impact of gut flora dysbiosis on host susceptibility to infection.
AB - The crosstalk between gut microbiota and host immunity has emerged as one of the research foci of microbiome studies in recent years. The purpose of this study was to determine how gut microbes respond to fungal infection in termites, given their reliance on gut symbionts for food intake as well as maintaining host health. Here, we used Metarhizium robertsii, an entomopathogenic fungus, to infect Odontotermes formosanus, a fungus-growing termite in the family Termitidae, and documented changes in host gut microbiota via a combination of bacterial 16S rDNA sequencing, metagenomic shotgun sequencing, and transmission electron microscopy. Our analyses found that when challenged with Metarhizium, the termite gut showed reduced microbial diversity within the first 12 h of fungal infection and then recovered and even surpassed pre-infection flora levels. These combined results shed light on the role of gut flora in maintaining homeostasis and immune homeostasis in the host, and the impact of gut flora dysbiosis on host susceptibility to infection.
KW - 16S rDNA sequencing
KW - Metarhizium robertsii
KW - Odontotermes formosanus
KW - gut microbiota
KW - metagenome
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85120696748&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85120696748&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fmicb.2021.723508
DO - 10.3389/fmicb.2021.723508
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85120696748
SN - 1664-302X
VL - 12
JO - Frontiers in Microbiology
JF - Frontiers in Microbiology
M1 - 723508
ER -