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Diet-driven mercury contamination is associated with polar bear gut microbiota
The gut microbiota may modulate the disposition and toxicity of environmental contaminants within a host but, conversely, contaminants may also impact gut bacteria. Such contaminant-gut microbial connections, which could lead to alteration of host health, remain poorly known and are rarely studied i...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8642428/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34862385 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-02657-6 |
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author | Watson, Sophie E. McKinney, Melissa A. Pindo, Massimo Bull, Matthew J. Atwood, Todd C. Hauffe, Heidi C. Perkins, Sarah E. |
author_facet | Watson, Sophie E. McKinney, Melissa A. Pindo, Massimo Bull, Matthew J. Atwood, Todd C. Hauffe, Heidi C. Perkins, Sarah E. |
author_sort | Watson, Sophie E. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The gut microbiota may modulate the disposition and toxicity of environmental contaminants within a host but, conversely, contaminants may also impact gut bacteria. Such contaminant-gut microbial connections, which could lead to alteration of host health, remain poorly known and are rarely studied in free-ranging wildlife. The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a long-lived, wide-ranging apex predator that feeds on a variety of high trophic position seal and cetacean species and, as such, is exposed to among the highest levels of biomagnifying contaminants of all Arctic species. Here, we investigate associations between mercury (THg; a key Arctic contaminant), diet, and the diversity and composition of the gut microbiota of polar bears inhabiting the southern Beaufort Sea, while accounting for host sex, age class and body condition. Bacterial diversity was negatively associated with seal consumption and mercury, a pattern seen for both Shannon and Inverse Simpson alpha diversity indices (adjusted R(2) = 0.35, F(1,18) = 8.00, P = 0.013 and adjusted R(2) = 0.26, F(1,18) = 6.04, P = 0.027, respectively). No association was found with sex, age class or body condition of polar bears. Bacteria known to either be involved in THg methylation or considered to be highly contaminant resistant, including Lactobacillales, Bacillales and Aeromonadales, were significantly more abundant in individuals that had higher THg concentrations. Conversely, individuals with higher THg concentrations showed a significantly lower abundance of Bacteroidales, a bacterial order that typically plays an important role in supporting host immune function by stimulating intraepithelial lymphocytes within the epithelial barrier. These associations between diet-acquired mercury and microbiota illustrate a potentially overlooked outcome of mercury accumulation in polar bears. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8642428 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-86424282021-12-06 Diet-driven mercury contamination is associated with polar bear gut microbiota Watson, Sophie E. McKinney, Melissa A. Pindo, Massimo Bull, Matthew J. Atwood, Todd C. Hauffe, Heidi C. Perkins, Sarah E. Sci Rep Article The gut microbiota may modulate the disposition and toxicity of environmental contaminants within a host but, conversely, contaminants may also impact gut bacteria. Such contaminant-gut microbial connections, which could lead to alteration of host health, remain poorly known and are rarely studied in free-ranging wildlife. The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a long-lived, wide-ranging apex predator that feeds on a variety of high trophic position seal and cetacean species and, as such, is exposed to among the highest levels of biomagnifying contaminants of all Arctic species. Here, we investigate associations between mercury (THg; a key Arctic contaminant), diet, and the diversity and composition of the gut microbiota of polar bears inhabiting the southern Beaufort Sea, while accounting for host sex, age class and body condition. Bacterial diversity was negatively associated with seal consumption and mercury, a pattern seen for both Shannon and Inverse Simpson alpha diversity indices (adjusted R(2) = 0.35, F(1,18) = 8.00, P = 0.013 and adjusted R(2) = 0.26, F(1,18) = 6.04, P = 0.027, respectively). No association was found with sex, age class or body condition of polar bears. Bacteria known to either be involved in THg methylation or considered to be highly contaminant resistant, including Lactobacillales, Bacillales and Aeromonadales, were significantly more abundant in individuals that had higher THg concentrations. Conversely, individuals with higher THg concentrations showed a significantly lower abundance of Bacteroidales, a bacterial order that typically plays an important role in supporting host immune function by stimulating intraepithelial lymphocytes within the epithelial barrier. These associations between diet-acquired mercury and microbiota illustrate a potentially overlooked outcome of mercury accumulation in polar bears. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-12-03 /pmc/articles/PMC8642428/ /pubmed/34862385 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-02657-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This 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/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Watson, Sophie E. McKinney, Melissa A. Pindo, Massimo Bull, Matthew J. Atwood, Todd C. Hauffe, Heidi C. Perkins, Sarah E. Diet-driven mercury contamination is associated with polar bear gut microbiota |
title | Diet-driven mercury contamination is associated with polar bear gut microbiota |
title_full | Diet-driven mercury contamination is associated with polar bear gut microbiota |
title_fullStr | Diet-driven mercury contamination is associated with polar bear gut microbiota |
title_full_unstemmed | Diet-driven mercury contamination is associated with polar bear gut microbiota |
title_short | Diet-driven mercury contamination is associated with polar bear gut microbiota |
title_sort | diet-driven mercury contamination is associated with polar bear gut microbiota |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8642428/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34862385 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-02657-6 |
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