Horizontal gene transfer-mediated bacterial strain variation affects host fitness in Drosophila

Abstract: Background
How microbes affect host fitness and environmental adaptation has become a fundamental research question in evolutionary biology. To better understand the role of microbial genomic variation for host fitness, we tested for associations of bacterial genomic variation and Drosophila melanogaster offspring number in a microbial Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS).

Results
We performed a microbial GWAS, leveraging strain variation in the genus Gluconobacter, a genus of bacteria that are commonly associated with Drosophila under natural conditions. We pinpoint the thiamine biosynthesis pathway (TBP) as contributing to differences in fitness conferred to the fly host. While an effect of thiamine on fly development has been described, we show that strain variation in TBP between bacterial isolates from wild-caught D. melanogaster contributes to variation in offspring production by the host. By tracing the evolutionary history of TBP genes in Gluconobacter, we find that TBP genes were most likely lost and reacquired by horizontal gene transfer (HGT).

Conclusion
Our study emphasizes the importance of strain variation and highlights that HGT can add to microbiome flexibility and potentially to host adaptation

Angaben zum Objekt

• Standort: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Umfang: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: Englisch
• Anmerkungen: BMC biology. - 19, 1 (2021) , 187, ISSN: 1741-7007

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wo): Freiburg
• (wer): Universität
• (wann): 2021
• Urheber: Wang, Yun ; Baumdicker, Franz ; Schweiger, Paul ; Künzel, Sven ; Staubach, Fabian

Weitere Informationen

• DOI: 10.1186/s12915-021-01124-y
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:25-freidok-2224530
• Rechteinformation: Kein Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 25.03.2025, 13:51 MEZ