Hoyt Joseph R, Cheng Tina L, Langwig Kate E, Hee Mallory M, Frick Winifred F, Kilpatrick A Marm
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2015 Apr 8;10(4):e0121329. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0121329. eCollection 2015.
Emerging infectious diseases are a key threat to wildlife. Several fungal skin pathogens have recently emerged and caused widespread mortality in several vertebrate groups, including amphibians, bats, rattlesnakes and humans. White-nose syndrome, caused by the fungal skin pathogen Pseudogymnoascus destructans, threatens several hibernating bat species with extinction and there are few effective treatment strategies. The skin microbiome is increasingly understood to play a large role in determining disease outcome. We isolated bacteria from the skin of four bat species, and co-cultured these isolates with P. destructans to identify bacteria that might inhibit or kill P. destructans. We then conducted two reciprocal challenge experiments in vitro with six bacterial isolates (all in the genus Pseudomonas) to quantify the effect of these bacteria on the growth of P. destructans. All six Pseudomonas isolates significantly inhibited growth of P. destructans compared to non-inhibitory control bacteria, and two isolates performed significantly better than others in suppressing P. destructans growth for at least 35 days. In both challenge experiments, the extent of suppression of P. destructans growth was dependent on the initial concentration of P. destructans and the initial concentration of the bacterial isolate. These results show that bacteria found naturally occurring on bats can inhibit the growth of P. destructans in vitro and should be studied further as a possible probiotic to protect bats from white-nose syndrome. In addition, the presence of these bacteria may influence disease outcomes among individuals, populations, and species.
新发传染病是野生动物面临的关键威胁。最近出现了几种真菌性皮肤病原体，在包括两栖动物、蝙蝠、响尾蛇和人类在内的几个脊椎动物群体中造成了广泛的死亡。由真菌性皮肤病原体白鼻拟盘多毛孢（Pseudogymnoascus destructans）引起的白鼻综合征，正威胁着几种冬眠蝙蝠物种的灭绝，而且几乎没有有效的治疗策略。人们越来越认识到皮肤微生物群在决定疾病结果方面起着很大作用。我们从四种蝙蝠物种的皮肤中分离出细菌，并将这些分离株与白鼻拟盘多毛孢共同培养，以鉴定可能抑制或杀死白鼻拟盘多毛孢的细菌。然后，我们用六种细菌分离株（均为假单胞菌属）进行了两项体外相互挑战实验，以量化这些细菌对白鼻拟盘多毛孢生长的影响。与无抑制作用的对照细菌相比，所有六种假单胞菌分离株均显著抑制了白鼻拟盘多毛孢的生长，并且有两种分离株在抑制白鼻拟盘多毛孢生长至少35天方面表现明显优于其他分离株。在两项挑战实验中，对白鼻拟盘多毛孢生长的抑制程度取决于白鼻拟盘多毛孢的初始浓度和细菌分离株的初始浓度。这些结果表明，在蝙蝠身上自然存在的细菌可以在体外抑制白鼻拟盘多毛孢的生长，作为一种可能的益生菌来保护蝙蝠免受白鼻综合征的侵害，值得进一步研究。此外，这些细菌的存在可能会影响个体、种群和物种之间的疾病结果。
