Yang Dong-Sheng, Tran Thuy Trang, Kazuki Higuchi, Yin Hao-Yun, Chou Jui-Yu
Department of Biology, National Changhua University of Education, Changhua, Taiwan.
Department of Food Science, Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA.
J Basic Microbiol. 2025 Jun 19:e70072. doi: 10.1002/jobm.70072.
The emergence of multidrug-resistant pathogens has significantly reduced the efficacy of current antimicrobial treatments against bacterial and fungal infections. To combat this challenge, the exploration of novel antimicrobial sources or the development of synthetic antibiotics is imperative. Microbes have emerged as promising natural reservoirs for antimicrobial compounds, with slime molds garnering attention due to their unique bioactive metabolites in recent years. Some of these metabolites demonstrate potent antibiotic properties. This study investigates the inhibitory effects of slime mold extracts on pathogenic bacteria, attributing this activity primarily to symbiotic bacteria associated with the slime molds rather than to the slime mold cells themselves. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this antibacterial effect can be horizontally transferred through bacterial ingestion, enabling recipient slime molds to exhibit antibacterial properties upon extraction. Importantly, slime molds selectively acquire bacteria from their environment to enhance their antibacterial characteristics, a process that appears non-random and persists through sexual cycles. These findings underscore slime molds as valuable reservoirs of antimicrobial agents. Nevertheless, it remains critical to ascertain whether these antimicrobial agents originate solely from symbiotic bacteria or result from complex interactions between these bacteria and their slime mold hosts. Understanding the mechanisms behind this antimicrobial activity not only expands our knowledge of host-microbe interactions but also provides new avenues for bioprospecting novel antibiotics. Investigating how slime molds selectively acquire and retain beneficial bacteria may offer insights into microbial symbiosis that could be leveraged for antimicrobial discovery, potentially addressing the urgent need for alternative treatments against resistant pathogens.
多重耐药病原体的出现显著降低了当前抗菌治疗对细菌和真菌感染的疗效。为应对这一挑战，探索新型抗菌来源或开发合成抗生素势在必行。微生物已成为抗菌化合物有前景的天然宝库，近年来黏菌因其独特的生物活性代谢产物而备受关注。其中一些代谢产物具有强大的抗生素特性。本研究调查了黏菌提取物对病原菌的抑制作用，认为这种活性主要归因于与黏菌相关的共生细菌，而非黏菌细胞本身。此外，我们证明这种抗菌作用可以通过细菌摄取进行水平转移，使受体黏菌在提取后表现出抗菌特性。重要的是，黏菌从其环境中选择性获取细菌以增强其抗菌特性，这一过程似乎是非随机的，并且在有性周期中持续存在。这些发现强调了黏菌作为抗菌剂宝贵来源的重要性。然而确定这些抗菌剂是否仅源自共生细菌，还是这些细菌与其黏菌宿主之间复杂相互作用的结果，仍然至关重要。了解这种抗菌活性背后的机制不仅能扩展我们对宿主 - 微生物相互作用的认识，还为生物勘探新型抗生素提供了新途径。研究黏菌如何选择性获取和保留有益细菌，可能为微生物共生提供见解，可用于抗菌发现，有望满足对抗耐药病原体替代治疗的迫切需求。
