Hartmann Arik M, McGrath-Blaser Sarah E, Colón-Piñeiro Zuania, Longo Ana V
Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.
Microbiology (Reading). 2023 Oct;169(10). doi: 10.1099/mic.0.001399.
Microbiomes are major determinants of host growth, development and survival. In amphibians, host-associated bacteria in the skin can inhibit pathogen infection, but many processes can influence the structure and composition of the community. Here we quantified the shifts in skin-associated bacteria across developmental stages in the striped newt (), a threatened salamander species with a complex life history and vulnerable to infection by the amphibian chytrid fungus and ranavirus. Our analyses show that pre-metamorphic larval and paedomorphic stages share similar bacterial compositions, and that the changes in the microbiome coincided with physiological restructuring during metamorphosis. Newts undergoing metamorphosis exhibited microbiome compositions that were intermediate between paedomorphic and post-metamorphic stages, further supporting the idea that metamorphosis is a major driver of host-associated microbes in amphibians. We did not find support for infection-related disruption of the microbiome, though infection replicates were small for each respective life stage.
微生物群是宿主生长、发育和生存的主要决定因素。在两栖动物中，皮肤中与宿主相关的细菌可以抑制病原体感染，但许多过程会影响群落的结构和组成。在这里，我们量化了条纹蝾螈不同发育阶段皮肤相关细菌的变化，条纹蝾螈是一种受威胁的蝾螈物种，生活史复杂，易受两栖壶菌和蛙病毒感染。我们的分析表明，变态前的幼虫阶段和幼态持续阶段具有相似的细菌组成，并且微生物群的变化与变态期间的生理重组相吻合。正在经历变态的蝾螈表现出的微生物群组成处于幼态持续阶段和变态后阶段之间，这进一步支持了变态是两栖动物宿主相关微生物的主要驱动因素这一观点。尽管每个生命阶段的感染样本量较小，但我们没有发现微生物群受到感染相关破坏的证据。
