Project description:First insight into microbiome profiles of myrmecophilous beetles and their host, red wood ant Formica polyctena (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)
Project description:Copper-azole based formulations were widely used against fungal decay for preservation of wood timbers. While efficient for wood protection, leaching of both copper and azole within the environment has deleterious impact on soils and surface waters. Moreover, no recycling process is currently available for these wood waste. By taking advantage of the fact that certain fungi have the capacity to cope with these active compounds, we propose that some ligninolytic fungi could be good biocatalysts for detoxifying copper-azole formulations. Using the white-rot fungus Phanerochaete chrysosporium as a model, we demonstrated that the main strategies implemented by this fungus to counteract the antifungal effect of the product, in particular azoles, are the modulation of the lipids and sterols content, the maintenance of DNA integrity, detoxification of azoles by extracellular degradation likely through the Fenton chemistry, biosorption at the cell wall, efflux, and intracellular detoxification by the three-step detoxification pathway. By using comparative transcriptomics between a copper-azole formulation and a copper-quaternary ammonium formulation, we manage to identify genes specifically involved in azole resistance and detoxification within this complex system, opening perspectives for both the identification of key molecular players that could be the targets for developing long-term acquired antifungal resistance mechanisms, and the management of azoles residues by mycoremediation processes.
2025-01-17 | GSE284110 | GEO
Project description:Formica aserva (blood-red field ant), iyForAser1
Project description:To investigate the effect of supergene status and social environment pre- and post-pupation, we used RNA-sequencing of fire ant ant workers to assess gene expression differences.
Project description:Although gut microbiomes are generally symbiotic or commensal, some of microbiomes become pathogenic under certain circumstances, which is one of key processes of pathogenesis. However, the factors involved in these complex gut-microbe interactions are largely unknown. Here we show that bacterial nucleoside catabolism using gut luminal uridine is required to boost inter-bacterial communications and gut pathogenesis in Drosophila. We found that uridine-derived uracil is required for DUOX-dependent ROS generation on the host side, whereas uridine-derived ribose induces quorum sensing and virulence gene expression on the bacterial side. Importantly, genetic ablation of bacterial nucleoside catabolism is sufficient to block the commensal-to-pathogen transition in vivo. Furthermore, we found that major commensal bacteria lack functional nucleoside catabolism, which is required to achieve gut-microbe symbiosis. The discovery of a novel role of bacterial nucleoside catabolism will greatly help to better understand the molecular mechanism of the commensal-to-pathogen transition in different contexts of host-microbe interactions.
