TY - JOUR
T1 - Mycoplasma-related endobacteria within Mortierellomycotina fungi
T2 - Diversity, distribution and functional insights into their lifestyle
AU - Desirò, Alessandro
AU - Hao, Zhen
AU - Liber, Julian A.
AU - Benucci, Gian Maria Niccolò
AU - Lowry, David
AU - Roberson, Robert
AU - Bonito, Gregory
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements We thank M Chilvers, G Doehring, A Gry-ganskyi, A Miller, KO’Donnell, A Porras-Alfaro, N Vande Pol, AM Vázquez Catoni, TJ Torres-Cruz, X Wang, CBS-Knaw Fungal Biodiversity Centre and NRRL Agricultural Research Service Culture Collection for fungal strains, and A Fryday, G Nderitu Mwangi and D Ojwang for soil samples. AD and GB were supported through the US National Science Foundation (NSF) DEB 1737898 and Michigan State University AgBioResearch NIFA project MICL02416. RR was supported through NSF grant DEB-1441728. AD and GB are grateful to the ‘ZyGoLife consortium’ for collaborations and training opportunities.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 International Society for Microbial Ecology.
PY - 2018/6/1
Y1 - 2018/6/1
N2 - Bacterial interactions with animals and plants have been examined for over a century; by contrast, the study of bacterial-fungal interactions has received less attention. Bacteria interact with fungi in diverse ways, and endobacteria that reside inside fungal cells represent the most intimate interaction. The most significant bacterial endosymbionts that have been studied are associated with Mucoromycota and include two main groups: Burkholderia-related and Mycoplasma-related endobacteria (MRE). Examples of Burkholderia-related endobacteria have been reported in the three Mucoromycota subphyla. By contrast, MRE have only been identified in Glomeromycotina and Mucoromycotina. This study aims to understand whether MRE dwell in Mortierellomycotina and, if so, to determine their impact on the fungal host. We carried out a large-scale screening of 394 Mortierellomycotina strains and employed a combination of microscopy, molecular phylogeny, next-generation sequencing and qPCR. We detected MRE in 12 strains. These endosymbionts represent novel bacterial phylotypes and show evidence of recombination. Their presence in Mortierellomycotina demonstrates that MRE occur within fungi across Mucoromycota and they may have lived in their common ancestor. We cured the fungus of its endosymbionts with antibiotics and observed improved biomass production in isogenic lines lacking MRE, demonstrating that these endobacteria impose some fitness costs to their fungal host. Here we provided the first functional insights into the lifestyle of MRE. Our findings indicate that MRE may be antagonistic to their fungal hosts, and adapted to a non-lethal parasitic lifestyle in the mycelium of Mucoromycota. However, context-dependent adaptive benefits to their host at minimal cost cannot not be excluded. Finally, we conclude that Mortierellomycotina represent attractive model organisms for exploring interactions between MRE and fungi.
AB - Bacterial interactions with animals and plants have been examined for over a century; by contrast, the study of bacterial-fungal interactions has received less attention. Bacteria interact with fungi in diverse ways, and endobacteria that reside inside fungal cells represent the most intimate interaction. The most significant bacterial endosymbionts that have been studied are associated with Mucoromycota and include two main groups: Burkholderia-related and Mycoplasma-related endobacteria (MRE). Examples of Burkholderia-related endobacteria have been reported in the three Mucoromycota subphyla. By contrast, MRE have only been identified in Glomeromycotina and Mucoromycotina. This study aims to understand whether MRE dwell in Mortierellomycotina and, if so, to determine their impact on the fungal host. We carried out a large-scale screening of 394 Mortierellomycotina strains and employed a combination of microscopy, molecular phylogeny, next-generation sequencing and qPCR. We detected MRE in 12 strains. These endosymbionts represent novel bacterial phylotypes and show evidence of recombination. Their presence in Mortierellomycotina demonstrates that MRE occur within fungi across Mucoromycota and they may have lived in their common ancestor. We cured the fungus of its endosymbionts with antibiotics and observed improved biomass production in isogenic lines lacking MRE, demonstrating that these endobacteria impose some fitness costs to their fungal host. Here we provided the first functional insights into the lifestyle of MRE. Our findings indicate that MRE may be antagonistic to their fungal hosts, and adapted to a non-lethal parasitic lifestyle in the mycelium of Mucoromycota. However, context-dependent adaptive benefits to their host at minimal cost cannot not be excluded. Finally, we conclude that Mortierellomycotina represent attractive model organisms for exploring interactions between MRE and fungi.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41396-018-0053-9
DO - 10.1038/s41396-018-0053-9
M3 - Article
C2 - 29476142
AN - SCOPUS:85042419625
SN - 1751-7362
VL - 12
SP - 1743
EP - 1757
JO - ISME Journal
JF - ISME Journal
IS - 7
ER -