Metagenomic Analysis Reveals Variations in Gut Microbiomes of the -Transmitting Snails and .

snails play a crucial role in the transmission of the human blood fluke . The gut microbiota of intermediate hosts is known to influence their physiological functions, but little is known about its composition and role in snails. To gain insights into the biological characteristics of these freshwater intermediate hosts, we conducted metagenomic sequencing on and to investigate variations in their gut microbiota. This study revealed that the dominant members of the gut microbiota in belong to the phyla Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria, which were also found to be the top two most abundant gut bacteria in . We identified Firmicutes, and as distinctive gut microbes in , while , and were found to be dependent features of the gut microbiota. We observed significant differences in the community structures and bacterial functions of the gut microbiota between the two host species. Notably, we found a distinctive richness of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) associated with various classes of antibiotics, including bacitracin, chloramphenicol, tetracycline, sulfonamide, penicillin, cephalosporin_ii and cephalosporin_i, fluoroquinolone, aminoglycoside, beta-lactam, multidrug and trimethoprim, in the digestive tracts of the snails. Furthermore, this study revealed the potential correlations between snail gut microbiota and the infection rate of using Spearman correlation analysis. Through metagenomic analysis, our study provided new insights into the gut microbiota of snails and how it is influenced by host species, thereby enhancing our understanding of variant patterns of gut microbial communities in intermediate hosts. Our findings may contribute to future studies on gastropod-microbe interactions and may provide valuable knowledge for developing snail control strategies to combat schistosomiasis in the future.