Center for Precision Medicine, Medical Research Center, Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, China.
Environmental Microbiomics Research Center, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), State Key Laboratory for Biocontrol, Sun Yat-sen Universitygrid.12981.33, Guangzhou, China.
Microbiol Spectr. 2022 Apr 27;10(2):e0169621. doi: 10.1128/spectrum.01696-21. Epub 2022 Mar 21.
Understanding interactions within the gut microbiome and its stability are of critical importance for deciphering ecological issues within the gut ecosystem. Recent studies indicate that long-term instability of gut microbiota is associated with human diseases, and recovery of stability is helpful in the return to health. However, much less is known about such topics in fish, which encompass nearly half of all vertebrate diversity. Here, we examined the assembly and succession of gut microbiota in more than 550 zebrafish, and evaluated the variations of microbial interactions and stability across fish development from larva to adult using molecular ecological network analysis. We found that microbial interactions and stability in the fish gut ecosystem generally increased with host development. This could be attributed to the development of the zebrafish immune system, the increasing amount of space available for microbial colonization within the gut, and the greater stability of nutrients available for the colonized microbiota in adult zebrafish. Moreover, the potential keystone taxa, even those with relatively low abundances, played important roles in affecting the microbial interactions and stability. These findings indicate that regulating rare keystone taxa in adult fish may have great potential in gut microbial management to maintain gut ecosystem stability, which could also provide references for managing gut microbiota in humans and other animals. Understanding gut microbial stability and the underlying mechanisms is an important but largely ignored ecological issue in vertebrate fish. Here, using a zebrafish model and network analysis of the gut microbiota we found that microbial interactions and stability in the gut ecosystem increase with fish development. This finding has important implications for microbial management to maintain gut homeostasis and provide better gut ecosystem services for the host. First, future studies should always consider using fish of different age groups to gain a full understanding of gut microbial networks. Second, management of the keystone taxa, even those that are only present at a low abundance, during the adult stage may be a viable pathway to maintain gut ecosystem stability. This study greatly expands our current knowledge regarding gut ecosystem stability in terms of ecological networks affected by fish development, and also highlights potential directions for gut microbial management in humans and other animals.
了解肠道微生物组内的相互作用及其稳定性对于解析肠道生态系统中的生态问题至关重要。最近的研究表明，肠道微生物群落的长期不稳定与人类疾病有关，恢复稳定性有助于恢复健康。然而，关于鱼类的这些问题知之甚少，鱼类几乎涵盖了所有脊椎动物多样性的一半。在这里，我们检查了超过 550 条斑马鱼的肠道微生物组的组装和演替，并使用分子生态网络分析评估了从幼虫到成年鱼类发育过程中微生物相互作用和稳定性的变化。我们发现，鱼类肠道生态系统中的微生物相互作用和稳定性通常随着宿主的发育而增加。这可能归因于斑马鱼免疫系统的发展、肠道内可供微生物定植的空间增加以及成年斑马鱼中可供定植菌群利用的营养物质的稳定性增加。此外，潜在的关键类群，即使它们的丰度相对较低，也在影响微生物相互作用和稳定性方面发挥着重要作用。这些发现表明，调节成年鱼类中的稀有关键类群可能在肠道微生物管理中具有维持肠道生态系统稳定性的巨大潜力，这也可为人类和其他动物的肠道微生物管理提供参考。了解肠道微生物稳定性及其潜在机制是脊椎动物鱼类中的一个重要但被广泛忽视的生态问题。在这里，我们使用斑马鱼模型和肠道微生物网络分析发现，肠道生态系统中的微生物相互作用和稳定性随着鱼类的发育而增加。这一发现对维持肠道内稳态和为宿主提供更好的肠道生态系统服务的微生物管理具有重要意义。首先，未来的研究应始终考虑使用不同年龄组的鱼类来全面了解肠道微生物网络。其次，在成年阶段管理关键类群，即使它们的丰度很低，也可能是维持肠道生态系统稳定性的可行途径。本研究极大地扩展了我们关于鱼类发育影响的肠道生态系统稳定性的现有知识，也突出了人类和其他动物肠道微生物管理的潜在方向。
