symbiosis
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyMicrobial Strategies for Survival in the Glass Sponge Vazella pourtalesiiWe investigated the microbial community of V. pourtalesii that forms globally unique, monospecific sponge grounds under low-oxygen conditions on the Scotian Shelf, where it plays a key role in its vulnerable ecosystem. The microbial community was found to be concentrated within biomass patches and is dominated by small cells (<1 μm). MAG analyses showed consistently small genome sizes and low GC contents, which is unusual...
Research Article | Ecological and Evolutionary ScienceEvolutionary Timeline and Genomic Plasticity Underlying the Lifestyle Diversity in RhizobialesBacteria form diverse interactions with eukaryotic hosts. This is well represented by the Rhizobiales, a clade of Alphaproteobacteria strategically important for their large diversity of lifestyles with implications for agricultural and medical research. To investigate their lifestyle evolution, we compiled a comprehensive data set of genomes and lifestyle information for over 1,000 Rhizobiales genomes. We...
Research Article | Synthetic BiologySynthetic Symbiosis under Environmental DisturbancesThe power of synthetic biology is immense. Will it, however, be able to withstand the environmental pressures once released in the wild. As new technologies aim to do precisely the same, we use a much simpler model to test mathematically the effect of a changing environment on a synthetic biological system. We assume that the system is successful if it maintains proportions close to what we observe in the laboratory. Extreme deviations...
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyMetabolic Analyses of Nitrogen Fixation in the Soybean Microsymbiont Sinorhizobium fredii Using Constraint-Based ModelingNitrogen is the most limiting macronutrient for plant growth, and rhizobia are important bacteria for agriculture because they can fix atmospheric nitrogen and make it available to legumes through the establishment of a symbiotic relationship with their host plants. In this work, we studied the nitrogen fixation process in the microsymbiont Sinorhizobium fredii at the...
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyDrug Repurposing of Bromodomain Inhibitors as Potential Novel Therapeutic Leads for Lymphatic Filariasis Guided by Multispecies TranscriptomicsThe current treatment regimen for lymphatic filariasis is mostly microfilaricidal. In an effort to identify new drug candidates for lymphatic filariasis, we conducted a three-way transcriptomics/systems biology study of one of the causative agents of lymphatic filariasis, Brugia malayi, its Wolbachia endosymbiont wBm, and its vector host...
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyExtensive Thioautotrophic Gill Endosymbiont Diversity within a Single Ctena orbiculata (Bivalvia: Lucinidae) Population and Implications for Defining Host-Symbiont Specificity and Species RecognitionSymbiont diversity and host/symbiont functions have been comprehensively profiled for only a few lucinid species. In this work, unprecedented thioautotrophic gill endosymbiont taxonomic diversity was characterized within a Ctena orbiculata population associated with both seagrass- and alga-covered sediments. Endosymbiont metabolisms included known chemosynthetic functions and an additional conserved, previously uncharacterized...
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyMultipartner Symbiosis across Biological Domains: Looking at the Eukaryotic Associations from a Microbial PerspectiveThe symbiotic lifestyle represents a fundamental cryptic contribution to the diversity of marine ecosystems. Sponges are ideal targets to improve understanding the symbiotic relationships from evolutionary and ecological points of view, because they are the most ancient metazoans on earth, are ubiquitous in the marine benthos, and establish complex symbiosis with both prokaryotes and animals, which in turn also harbor their own...
Special Issue Perspective | Host-Microbe BiologyThe Vibrio-Squid Symbiosis as a Model for Studying Interbacterial CompetitionThe symbiosis between Euprymna scolopes squid and its bioluminescent bacterial symbiont, Vibrio fischeri, is a valuable model system to study a natural, coevolved host-microbe association. Over the past 30 years, researchers have developed and optimized many experimental methods to study both...
Special Issue Perspective | Host-Microbe BiologyThe Significance of Microbial Symbionts in Ecosystem ProcessesIt is increasingly accepted that the microbial symbionts of eukaryotes can have profound effects on host ecology and evolution. However, the relative contribution that they make directly to ecosystem processes, like energy and nutrient flows, is less explicitly acknowledged and, in many cases, only poorly constrained.
Special Issue Perspective | Host-Microbe BiologyMetaproteomics: Much More than Measuring Gene Expression in Microbial CommunitiesMetaproteomics is the large-scale identification and quantification of proteins from microbial communities and thus provides direct insight into the phenotypes of microorganisms on the molecular level. Initially, metaproteomics was mainly used to assess the “expressed” metabolism and physiology of microbial community members.