Dataset Information

Caenorhabditis elegans responses to bacteria from its natural habitats.

ABSTRACT: Most Caenorhabditis elegans studies have used laboratory Escherichia coli as diet and microbial environment. Here we characterize bacteria of C. elegans' natural habitats of rotting fruits and vegetation to provide greater context for its physiological responses. By the use of 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA)-based sequencing, we identified a large variety of bacteria in C. elegans habitats, with phyla Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, and Actinobacteria being most abundant. From laboratory assays using isolated natural bacteria, C. elegans is able to forage on most bacteria (robust growth on ?80% of >550 isolates), although ?20% also impaired growth and arrested and/or stressed animals. Bacterial community composition can predict wild C. elegans population states in both rotting apples and reconstructed microbiomes: alpha-Proteobacteria-rich communities promote proliferation, whereas Bacteroidetes or pathogens correlate with nonproliferating dauers. Combinatorial mixtures of detrimental and beneficial bacteria indicate that bacterial influence is not simply nutritional. Together, these studies provide a foundation for interrogating how bacteria naturally influence C. elegans physiology.

SUBMITTER: Samuel BS

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4941482 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Caenorhabditis elegans responses to bacteria from its natural habitats.

Samuel Buck S BS Rowedder Holli H Braendle Christian C Félix Marie-Anne MA Ruvkun Gary G

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20160617 27

Most Caenorhabditis elegans studies have used laboratory Escherichia coli as diet and microbial environment. Here we characterize bacteria of C. elegans' natural habitats of rotting fruits and vegetation to provide greater context for its physiological responses. By the use of 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA)-based sequencing, we identified a large variety of bacteria in C. elegans habitats, with phyla Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, and Actinobacteria being most abundant. From laboratory ass ...[more]

PMID: 27317746

Similar Datasets

Project description:Bacterivore nematodes are the most abundant animals in the biosphere, largely contributing to global biogeochemistry. Thus, the effects of environmental microbes on the nematodes' life-history traits are likely to contribute to the general health of the biosphere. Caenorhabditis elegans is an excellent model to study the behavioral and physiological outputs of microbial diets. However, the effects of complex natural bacterial assemblies have only recently been reported, as most studies have been carried out with monoxenic cultures of laboratory-reared bacteria. Here, we quantified the physiological, phenotypic, and behavioral traits of C. elegans feeding on two bacteria that were coisolated with wild nematodes from a soil sample. These bacteria were identified as a putative novel species of Stenotrophomonas named Stenotrophomonas sp. strain Iso1 and a strain of Bacillus pumilus designated Iso2. The distinctive behaviors and developmental patterns observed in animals fed with individual isolates changed when bacteria were mixed. We studied in more depth the degeneration rate of the touch circuit of C. elegans and show that B. pumilus alone is protective, while the mix with Stenotrophomonas sp. is degenerative. The analysis of the metabolite contents of each isolate and their combination identified NAD+ as being potentially neuroprotective. In vivo supplementation shows that NAD+ restores neuroprotection to the mixes and also to individual nonprotective bacteria. Our results highlight the distinctive physiological effects of bacteria resembling native diets in a multicomponent scenario rather than using single isolates on nematodes. IMPORTANCE Do behavioral choices depend on animals' microbiota? To answer this question, we studied how different bacterial assemblies impact the life-history traits of the bacterivore nematode C. elegans using isolated bacteria found in association with wild nematodes in Chilean soil. We identified the first isolate, Iso1, as a novel species of Stenotrophomonas and isolate Iso2 as Bacillus pumilus. We find that worm traits such as food choice, pharyngeal pumping, and neuroprotection, among others, are dependent on the biota composition. For example, the neurodegeneration of the touch circuit needed to sense and escape from predators in the wild decreases when nematodes are fed on B. pumilus, while its coculture with Stenotrophomonas sp. eliminates neuroprotection. Using metabolomics analysis, we identify metabolites such as NAD+, present in B. pumilus yet lost in the mix, as being neuroprotective and validated their protective effects using in vivo experiments.

Dataset Information

Caenorhabditis elegans responses to bacteria from its natural habitats.

Publications

Caenorhabditis elegans responses to bacteria from its natural habitats.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets