Metagenomic Insights into Metabolic Capacities of the Gut Microbiota in a Fungus-Cultivating Termite (Odontotermes yunnanensis)

作者：Ning Liu, Lei Zhang, Haokui Zhou, Mei‐Ling Zhang, Xing Yan, Qian Wang, Yanhua Long, Lei Xie, Shengyue Wang, Yongping Huang, Zhihua Zhou · 发表于：PLoS ONE · 年份：2013 · DOI：10.1371/journal.pone.0069184 · 被引用次数：112 · 研究领域：Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior、Plant and animal studies、Insect symbiosis and bacterial influences

Macrotermitinae (fungus-cultivating termites) are major decomposers in tropical and subtropical areas of Asia and Africa. They have specifically evolved mutualistic associations with both a Termitomyces fungi on the nest and a gut microbiota, providing a model system for probing host-microbe interactions. Yet the symbiotic roles of gut microbes residing in its major feeding caste remain largely undefined. Here, by pyrosequencing the whole gut metagenome of adult workers of a fungus-cultivating termite (Odontotermes yunnanensis), we showed that it did harbor a broad set of genes or gene modules encoding carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) relevant to plant fiber degradation, particularly debranching enzymes and oligosaccharide-processing enzymes. Besides, it also contained a considerable number of genes encoding chitinases and glycoprotein oligosaccharide-processing enzymes for fungal cell wall degradation. To investigate the metabolic divergence of higher termites of different feeding guilds, a SEED subsystem-based gene-centric comparative analysis of the data with that of a previously sequenced wood-feeding Nasutitermes hindgut microbiome was also attempted, revealing that SEED classifications of nitrogen metabolism, and motility and chemotaxis were significantly overrepresented in the wood-feeder hindgut metagenome, while Bacteroidales conjugative transposons and subsystems related to central aromatic compounds metabolism were apparently overrepresented here. This work fi...