Department of Entomology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
Biol Lett. 2020 Feb;16(2):20190803. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2019.0803. Epub 2020 Feb 26.
Most research on the nutritional significance of the gut microbiome is conducted on laboratory animals, and its relevance to wild animals is largely unknown. This study investigated the microbiome correlates of lipid content in individual wild fruit flies, . Lipid content varied 3.6-fold among the flies and was significantly correlated with the abundance of gut-derived bacterial DNA sequences that were assigned to genes contributing to 16 KEGG pathways. These included genes encoding sugar transporters and enzymes in glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, potentially promoting sugar consumption by the gut microbiome and, thereby, a lean fly phenotype. Furthermore, the lipid content of wild flies was significantly lower than laboratory flies, indicating that, as for some mammalian models, certain laboratory protocols might be obesogenic for . This study demonstrates the value of research on natural populations to identify candidate microbial genes that influence ecologically important host traits.
大多数关于肠道微生物组营养意义的研究都是在实验动物上进行的，其与野生动物的相关性在很大程度上尚不清楚。本研究调查了个体野生果蝇脂质含量的微生物组相关性。果蝇的脂质含量变化了 3.6 倍，与肠道衍生细菌 DNA 序列的丰度显著相关，这些序列被分配到参与 16 条 KEGG 途径的基因。这些基因包括编码糖转运体和糖酵解/糖异生中的酶的基因，可能促进肠道微生物组对糖的消耗，从而使果蝇表现出瘦型表型。此外，野生果蝇的脂质含量明显低于实验室果蝇，表明与某些哺乳动物模型一样，某些实验室方案可能对肥胖。本研究表明，对自然种群的研究具有重要价值，可以确定影响生态重要宿主特征的候选微生物基因。
