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Host reproductive cycle influences the pouch microbiota of wild southern hairy-nosed wombats (Lasiorhinus latifrons)
BACKGROUND: Marsupials are born much earlier than placental mammals, with most crawling from the birth canal to the protective marsupium (pouch) to further their development. However, little is known about the microbiology of the pouch and how it changes throughout a marsupial’s reproductive cycle....
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7836174/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33500001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s42523-021-00074-8 |
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author | Weiss, Sesilje Taggart, David Smith, Ian Helgen, Kristofer M. Eisenhofer, Raphael |
author_facet | Weiss, Sesilje Taggart, David Smith, Ian Helgen, Kristofer M. Eisenhofer, Raphael |
author_sort | Weiss, Sesilje |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Marsupials are born much earlier than placental mammals, with most crawling from the birth canal to the protective marsupium (pouch) to further their development. However, little is known about the microbiology of the pouch and how it changes throughout a marsupial’s reproductive cycle. Here, using stringent controls, we characterized the microbial composition of multiple body sites from 26 wild Southern Hairy-nosed Wombats (SHNWs), including pouch samples from animals at different reproductive stages. RESULTS: Using qPCR of the 16S rRNA gene we detected a microbial community in the SHNW pouch. We observed significant differences in microbial composition and diversity between the body sites tested, as well as between pouch samples from different reproductive stages. The pouches of reproductively active females had drastically lower microbial diversity (mean ASV richness 19 ± 8) compared to reproductively inactive females (mean ASV richness 941 ± 393) and were dominated by gram positive bacteria from the Actinobacteriota phylum (81.7–90.6%), with the dominant families classified as Brevibacteriaceae, Corynebacteriaceae, Microbacteriaceae, and Dietziaceae. Three of the five most abundant sequences identified in reproductively active pouches had closest matches to microbes previously isolated from tammar wallaby pouches. CONCLUSIONS: This study represents the first contamination-controlled investigation into the marsupial pouch microbiota, and sets a rigorous framework for future pouch microbiota studies. Our results indicate that SHNW pouches contain communities of microorganisms that are substantially altered by the host reproductive cycle. We recommend further investigation into the roles that pouch microorganisms may play in marsupial reproductive health and joey survival. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s42523-021-00074-8. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7836174 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-78361742021-01-26 Host reproductive cycle influences the pouch microbiota of wild southern hairy-nosed wombats (Lasiorhinus latifrons) Weiss, Sesilje Taggart, David Smith, Ian Helgen, Kristofer M. Eisenhofer, Raphael Anim Microbiome Research Article BACKGROUND: Marsupials are born much earlier than placental mammals, with most crawling from the birth canal to the protective marsupium (pouch) to further their development. However, little is known about the microbiology of the pouch and how it changes throughout a marsupial’s reproductive cycle. Here, using stringent controls, we characterized the microbial composition of multiple body sites from 26 wild Southern Hairy-nosed Wombats (SHNWs), including pouch samples from animals at different reproductive stages. RESULTS: Using qPCR of the 16S rRNA gene we detected a microbial community in the SHNW pouch. We observed significant differences in microbial composition and diversity between the body sites tested, as well as between pouch samples from different reproductive stages. The pouches of reproductively active females had drastically lower microbial diversity (mean ASV richness 19 ± 8) compared to reproductively inactive females (mean ASV richness 941 ± 393) and were dominated by gram positive bacteria from the Actinobacteriota phylum (81.7–90.6%), with the dominant families classified as Brevibacteriaceae, Corynebacteriaceae, Microbacteriaceae, and Dietziaceae. Three of the five most abundant sequences identified in reproductively active pouches had closest matches to microbes previously isolated from tammar wallaby pouches. CONCLUSIONS: This study represents the first contamination-controlled investigation into the marsupial pouch microbiota, and sets a rigorous framework for future pouch microbiota studies. Our results indicate that SHNW pouches contain communities of microorganisms that are substantially altered by the host reproductive cycle. We recommend further investigation into the roles that pouch microorganisms may play in marsupial reproductive health and joey survival. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s42523-021-00074-8. BioMed Central 2021-01-25 /pmc/articles/PMC7836174/ /pubmed/33500001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s42523-021-00074-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Weiss, Sesilje Taggart, David Smith, Ian Helgen, Kristofer M. Eisenhofer, Raphael Host reproductive cycle influences the pouch microbiota of wild southern hairy-nosed wombats (Lasiorhinus latifrons) |
title | Host reproductive cycle influences the pouch microbiota of wild southern hairy-nosed wombats (Lasiorhinus latifrons) |
title_full | Host reproductive cycle influences the pouch microbiota of wild southern hairy-nosed wombats (Lasiorhinus latifrons) |
title_fullStr | Host reproductive cycle influences the pouch microbiota of wild southern hairy-nosed wombats (Lasiorhinus latifrons) |
title_full_unstemmed | Host reproductive cycle influences the pouch microbiota of wild southern hairy-nosed wombats (Lasiorhinus latifrons) |
title_short | Host reproductive cycle influences the pouch microbiota of wild southern hairy-nosed wombats (Lasiorhinus latifrons) |
title_sort | host reproductive cycle influences the pouch microbiota of wild southern hairy-nosed wombats (lasiorhinus latifrons) |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7836174/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33500001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s42523-021-00074-8 |
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