symbiosis
CommentaryFinding Needles in Haystacks and Inferring Their Function: Challenges and Successes in Beneficial Symbiosis ResearchSymbioses between hosts and beneficial microbes are key drivers of biological innovation and diversity. While a range of systems have emerged that provide foundational insights into how symbioses function and evolve, we still have a limited understanding of the vast diversity of organisms that engage in such interactions.
Editor's Pick Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyEssential Amino Acid Enrichment and Positive Selection Highlight Endosymbiont's Role in a Global Virus-Vectoring PestXiphinematobacter spp. are distinctly evolved intracellular symbionts in the phylum Verrucomicrobia, which includes the important human gut-associated microbe Akkermansia muciniphila and many highly abundant free-living soil microbes. Like Akkermansia sp., Xiphinematobacter sp. is obligately associated with the gut of its hosts,...
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyMetatranscriptomics by In Situ RNA Stabilization Directly and Comprehensively Revealed Episymbiotic Microbial Communities of Deep-Sea Squat LobstersDeep-sea hydrothermal vent ecosystems remain mysterious. To depict in detail the enigmatic life of chemosynthetic microbes, which are key primary producers in these ecosystems, metatranscriptomic analysis is expected to be a promising approach. However, this has been hindered by substantial perturbation (e.g., RNA degradation) during time-consuming retrieval from the deep sea. In this study, we conducted direct metatranscriptome...
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyClade-Specific Sterol Metabolites in Dinoflagellate Endosymbionts Are Associated with Coral Bleaching in Response to Environmental CuesThese results indicate that sterol metabolites in Symbiodiniaceae are clade specific, that their biosynthetic pathways share architectural and substrate specificity features with those of animals and plants, and that environmental stress-specific perturbation of sterol biosynthesis in dinoflagellates can impair a key mutualistic partnership for healthy reefs.
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...