scholarly journals Minor environmental concentrations of antibiotics can modify bacterial virulence in co-infection with a non-targeted parasite

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 20180663 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotta-Riina Sundberg ◽  
Anssi Karvonen
Keyword(s):  
Disease Ecology ◽  
Interspecific Interactions ◽  
Parasite Community ◽  
Fish Host ◽  
Bacterial Virulence ◽  
Flavobacterium Columnare ◽  
Bacterial Strains ◽  
Environmental Concentrations ◽  
Diplostomum Pseudospathaceum ◽  
Natural Communities

Leakage of medical residues into the environment can significantly impact natural communities. For example, antibiotic contamination from agriculture and aquaculture can directly influence targeted pathogens, but also other non-targeted taxa of commensals and parasites that regularly co-occur and co-infect the same host. Consequently, antibiotics could significantly alter interspecific interactions and epidemiology of the co-infecting parasite community. We studied how minor environmental concentrations of antibiotic affects the co-infection of two parasites, the bacterium Flavobacterium columnare and the fluke Diplostomum pseudospathaceum , in their fish host. We found that antibiotic in feed, and particularly the minute concentration in water, significantly decreased bacterial virulence and changed the infection success of the flukes. These effects depended on the level of antibiotic resistance of the bacterial strains. Antibiotic, however, did not compensate for the higher virulence of co-infections. Our results demonstrate that even very low environmental concentrations of antibiotic can influence ecology and epidemiology of diseases in co-infection with non-targeted parasites. Leakage of antibiotics into the environment may thus have more complex effects on disease ecology than previously anticipated.

Complex environments alter competitive dynamics in fungi

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Chan ◽  
Stephen Bonser ◽  
Michael M. Kasumovic ◽  
Jeff Powell ◽  
William Kirkham Cornwell
Keyword(s):  
Interspecific Interactions ◽  
Fungal Species ◽  
Wood Block ◽  
Complex Environments ◽  
Biotic Factor ◽  
Pairwise Interactions ◽  
Agar Media ◽  
Contextual Environment ◽  
Natural Settings ◽  
Natural Communities

Competition is a key biotic factor that often structures natural communities. Many attempts to disentangle how competition shapes natural communities have relied on experiments on simplified systems or through simple mathematical models. But these simplified approaches are limited in their ability to represent the complexity seen in more natural settings. Here, we considered the competitive pairwise dynamics between four saprotrophic fungal species. We tested whether the contextual environment changed these dynamics, repeating competitive experiments in a simple agar media and a more ecologically realistic wood block setting. We found that the competitive outcomes on agar media differed from those within the wood blocks. While superior competitors were identified across all pairwise interactions on agar, within the wood blocks, two of six interactions resulted in deadlock, where neither competitor could breach territory of the other, and one interaction resulted in a reversed competitive outcome. These results suggest that the complexity within natural substrates can alter the strength of interspecific interactions and may contribute to coexistence and the resulting high diversity of fungi often observed within wood.

scholarly journals Prophages and Past Prophage-Host Interactions Revealed by CRISPR Spacer Content in a Fish Pathogen

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 1919
Author(s):  
Elina Laanto ◽  
Janne J. Ravantti ◽  
Lotta-Riina Sundberg
Keyword(s):  
Flavobacterium Columnare ◽  
Strain Atcc ◽  
Human Pathogens ◽  
Fish Pathogen ◽  
Bacterial Strains ◽  
Host Interactions ◽  
Different Strains ◽  
Gene Orthologs ◽  
Similar Genome Organization

The role of prophages in the evolution, diversification, or virulence of the fish pathogen Flavobacterium columnare has not been studied thus far. Here, we describe a functional spontaneously inducing prophage fF4 from the F. columnare type strain ATCC 23463, which is not detectable with commonly used prophage search methods. We show that this prophage type has a global distribution and is present in strains isolated from Finland, Thailand, Japan, and North America. The virions of fF4 are myoviruses with contractile tails and infect only bacterial strains originating from Northern Finland. The fF4 resembles transposable phages by similar genome organization and several gene orthologs. Additional bioinformatic analyses reveal several species in the phylum Bacteroidetes that host a similar type of putative prophage, including bacteria that are important animal and human pathogens. Furthermore, a survey of F. columnare Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) spacers indicate a shared evolutionary history between F. columnare strains and the fF4 phage, and another putative prophage in the F. columnare strain ATCC 49512, named p49512. First, CRISPR spacer content from the two CRISPR loci (types II-C and VI-B) of the fF4 lysogen F. columnare ATCC 23463 revealed a phage terminase protein-matching spacer in the VI-B locus. This spacer is also present in two Chinese F. columnare strains. Second, CRISPR analysis revealed four F. columnare strains that contain unique spacers targeting different regions of the putative prophage p49512 in the F. columnare strain ATCC 49512, despite the geographical distance or genomovar of the different strains. This suggests a common ancestry for the F. columnare prophages and different host strains.

scholarly journals Limited impacts of chronic eye fluke infection on the reproductive success of a fish host

2019 ◽  
Vol 129 (2) ◽  
pp. 334-346
Author(s):  
Veronika Nezhybová ◽  
Martin Reichard ◽  
Caroline Methling ◽  
Markéta Ondračková
Keyword(s):  
Reproductive Success ◽  
Fish Host ◽  
Control Fish ◽  
Parasitic Infections ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Juvenile Mortality ◽  
Diplostomum Pseudospathaceum ◽  
Fluke Infection ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Eye Fluke

Abstract Parasitic infections may affect the reproductive success of the host either directly, through behavioural modification, or indirectly, by altering their reproductive investment in response to infection. We determined the effects of infection with the eye fluke Diplostomum pseudospathaceum (Trematoda) on the reproductive traits of European bitterling (Rhodeus amarus, Cyprinidae), an intermediate fish host with a resource-based mating system. Male bitterling infected by Diplostomum exhibited a larger but less pronounced red eye spot (sexually selected signal) than control males, suggesting that infected males were less preferred by females. The frequency of female ovulation and number of offspring were comparable between the infected and the control group, although there was a 1–2 week delay in the peak of ovulation and offspring production in infected fish, which is known to coincide with higher juvenile mortality. Chronic eye fluke infection had minimal metabolic costs (measured as oxygen consumption) and, consistent with these results, reproductive activity did not differ between infected and control fish in an experimental test of intersexual selection. Overall, the impact of eye fluke infection on the reproduction of European bitterling was limited. We consider the potential effect of favourable conditions during experiments (abundant food, access to spawning substrate and lack of predators and co-infections) on experimental outcomes and recognize that the effects of chronic eye fluke infection in natural conditions might be more pronounced.

scholarly journals Keystone species and food webs

2009 ◽  
Vol 364 (1524) ◽  
pp. 1733-1741 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferenc Jordán
Keyword(s):  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Interspecific Interactions ◽  
Keystone Species ◽  
Ecosystem Functions ◽  
General Interest ◽  
Interaction Structure ◽  
Structure And Dynamics ◽  
Rich Interaction ◽  
Natural Communities

Different species are of different importance in maintaining ecosystem functions in natural communities. Quantitative approaches are needed to identify unusually important or influential, ‘keystone’ species particularly for conservation purposes. Since the importance of some species may largely be the consequence of their rich interaction structure, one possible quantitative approach to identify the most influential species is to study their position in the network of interspecific interactions. In this paper, I discuss the role of network analysis (and centrality indices in particular) in this process and present a new and simple approach to characterizing the interaction structures of each species in a complex network. Understanding the linkage between structure and dynamics is a condition to test the results of topological studies, I briefly overview our current knowledge on this issue. The study of key nodes in networks has become an increasingly general interest in several disciplines: I will discuss some parallels. Finally, I will argue that conservation biology needs to devote more attention to identify and conserve keystone species and relatively less attention to rarity.

scholarly journals Biofilm Interaction Mapping and Analysis (BIMA): A tool for deconstructing interspecific interactions in co-culture biofilms

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne M Kosina ◽  
Peter Rademacher ◽  
Kelly M Wetmore ◽  
Markus de Raad ◽  
Marcin Zemla ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Contaminated Soil ◽  
Interspecific Interactions ◽  
Pseudomonas Stutzeri ◽  
Interspecific Interaction ◽  
Deletion Mutants ◽  
Bacterial Strains ◽  
Chromium Vi ◽  
Pseudomonas Species ◽  
Aquaculture Management ◽  
Culture Growth

Pseudomonas species are ubiquitous in nature and include numerous medically, agriculturally and technologically beneficial strains of which the interspecific interactions are of great interest for biotechnologies. Specifically, co-cultures containing Pseudomonas stutzeri have been used for bioremediation, biocontrol, aquaculture management and wastewater denitrification. Furthermore, the use of P. stutzeri biofilms, in combination with consortia based approaches, may offer advantages for these processes. Understanding the interspecific interaction within biofilm co-cultures or consortia provides a means for improvement of current technologies. However, the investigation of biofilm based consortia has been limited. We present an adaptable and scalable method for the analysis of macroscopic interactions (colony morphology, inhibition and invasion) between colony forming bacterial strains using an automated printing method followed by analysis of the genes and metabolites involved in the interactions. Using Biofilm Interaction Mapping and Analysis (BIMA), these interactions were investigated between P. stutzeri strain RCH2, a denitrifier isolated from chromium (VI) contaminated soil, and thirteen other species of pseudomonas isolated from non-contaminated soil. The metabolites and genes associated with both active co-culture growth and inhibitory growth were investigated using mass spectrometry based metabolomics and mutant fitness profiling of a DNA-barcoded mutant library. One interaction partner, Pseudomonas fluorescens N1B4 was selected for mutant fitness profiling; with this approach four genes of importance were identified and the effects on interactions were evaluated with deletion mutants and metabolomics.

Intraguild interactions between five congeneric species of Thaparocleidus (Monogenoidea) from the freshwater shark Wallago attu, Lucknow, India

2017 ◽  
Vol 91 (6) ◽  
pp. 718-725 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Agrawal ◽  
S. Rajvanshi ◽  
A. Asthana
Keyword(s):  
Worm Burden ◽  
Interspecific Interactions ◽  
Molecular Data ◽  
Fish Host ◽  
Congeneric Species ◽  
Intraguild Interactions ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Parasitic Worm ◽  
Wallago Attu ◽  
Morphological And Molecular Data

AbstractThe fish host (Wallago attu) and monogenoid parasite (Thaparocleidus sp.) have been recorded during 2 years (2011 and 2012) to investigate intra/interspecific interactions among query species (T. sudhakari (Gusev, 1976) Lim, 1996; T. indicus (Kulkarni, 1969) Lim, 1996; T. gomtius (Jain, 1952) Lim, 1996; T. yogendraii Agrawal, 1981 and T. wallagonius Jain, 1952) in the light of parasitic worm burden, morphological and molecular data. Each species is highly host specific (oioxenous), with a specialized functional niche. Being niche specialists, they exhibit niche overlapping along with co-existence due to reproductive barrier. Furthermore, a molecular marker, affirming clear-cut genetic variation in spite of structural entities, provides evidence for infra-speciation as well as co-speciation.

scholarly journals Small molecules aimed at type III secretion systems to inhibit bacterial virulence

MedChemComm ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lun K. Tsou ◽  
Paul D. Dossa ◽  
Howard C. Hang
Keyword(s):  
Small Molecules ◽  
Type Iii Secretion ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
Bacterial Virulence ◽  
Bacterial Strains ◽  
Secretion Systems ◽  
Type Iii ◽  
Type Iii Secretion Systems

The development of new anti-bacterial compounds presents a major challenge to modern medicine as bacterial strains resistant to traditional antibiotics are constantly emerging.

scholarly journals Biofilm Interaction Mapping and Analysis (BIMA) of Interspecific Interactions in Pseudomonas Co-culture Biofilms

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne M. Kosina ◽  
Peter Rademacher ◽  
Kelly M. Wetmore ◽  
Markus de Raad ◽  
Marcin Zemla ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Contaminated Soil ◽  
Interspecific Interactions ◽  
Pseudomonas Stutzeri ◽  
Interspecific Interaction ◽  
Deletion Mutants ◽  
Mutant Library ◽  
Bacterial Strains ◽  
Chromium Vi ◽  
Pseudomonas Species ◽  
Aquaculture Management

Pseudomonas species are ubiquitous in nature and include numerous medically, agriculturally and technologically beneficial strains of which the interspecific interactions are of great interest for biotechnologies. Specifically, co-cultures containing Pseudomonas stutzeri have been used for bioremediation, biocontrol, aquaculture management and wastewater denitrification. Furthermore, the use of P. stutzeri biofilms, in combination with consortia-based approaches, may offer advantages for these processes. Understanding the interspecific interaction within biofilm co-cultures or consortia provides a means for improvement of current technologies. However, the investigation of biofilm-based consortia has been limited. We present an adaptable and scalable method for the analysis of macroscopic interactions (colony morphology, inhibition, and invasion) between colony-forming bacterial strains using an automated printing method followed by analysis of the genes and metabolites involved in the interactions. Using Biofilm Interaction Mapping and Analysis (BIMA), these interactions were investigated between P. stutzeri strain RCH2, a denitrifier isolated from chromium (VI) contaminated soil, and 13 other species of pseudomonas isolated from non-contaminated soil. One interaction partner, Pseudomonas fluorescens N1B4 was selected for mutant fitness profiling of a DNA-barcoded mutant library; with this approach four genes of importance were identified and the effects on interactions were evaluated with deletion mutants and mass spectrometry based metabolomics.

scholarly journals Gnotobiotic rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) model reveals endogenous bacteria that protect against Flavobacterium columnare infection

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. e1009302
Author(s):  
David Pérez-Pascual ◽  
Sol Vendrell-Fernández ◽  
Bianca Audrain ◽  
Joaquín Bernal-Bayard ◽  
Rafael Patiño-Navarrete ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rainbow Trout ◽  
Oncorhynchus Mykiss ◽  
Antibiotic Use ◽  
Control Fish ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Flavobacterium Columnare ◽  
Bacterial Strains ◽  
Farmed Fish ◽  
Germ Free ◽  
Significant Difference

The health and environmental risks associated with antibiotic use in aquaculture have promoted bacterial probiotics as an alternative approach to control fish infections in vulnerable larval and juvenile stages. However, evidence-based identification of probiotics is often hindered by the complexity of bacteria-host interactions and host variability in microbiologically uncontrolled conditions. While these difficulties can be partially resolved using gnotobiotic models harboring no or reduced microbiota, most host-microbe interaction studies are carried out in animal models with little relevance for fish farming. Here we studied host-microbiota-pathogen interactions in a germ-free and gnotobiotic model of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), one of the most widely cultured salmonids. We demonstrated that germ-free larvae raised in sterile conditions displayed no significant difference in growth after 35 days compared to conventionally-raised larvae, but were extremely sensitive to infection by Flavobacterium columnare, a common freshwater fish pathogen causing major economic losses worldwide. Furthermore, re-conventionalization with 11 culturable species from the conventional trout microbiota conferred resistance to F. columnare infection. Using mono-re-conventionalized germ-free trout, we identified that this protection is determined by a commensal Flavobacterium strain displaying antibacterial activity against F. columnare. Finally, we demonstrated that use of gnotobiotic trout is a suitable approach for the identification of both endogenous and exogenous probiotic bacterial strains protecting teleostean hosts against F. columnare. This study therefore establishes an ecologically-relevant gnotobiotic model for the study of host-pathogen interactions and colonization resistance in farmed fish.

scholarly journals Exogenous Protein as an Environmental Stimuli of Biofilm Formation in Select Bacterial Strains

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna Ye ◽  
Lekha Bapu ◽  
Mariane Mota Cavalcante ◽  
Jesse Kato ◽  
Maggie Lauria Sneideman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Biofilm Formation ◽  
Pathogenic Bacteria ◽  
Milk Protein ◽  
Flavobacterium Columnare ◽  
Bacterial Strains ◽  
Fish Pathogens ◽  
Cell Counts ◽  
Exogenous Protein ◽  
High Concentrations ◽  
Species Specific

ABSTRACTA screening of environmental conditions that would elicit robust biofilm in a collection ofSerratia marcescensisolated from soil revealed that exogenous milk protein increased biofilm productivity up to ten-fold. A select screening of fish pathogens, freshwater and human isolates identified several other species that responded similarly to exogenous protein. The optimal protein concentration was species specific;S. marcescensat 5% milk protein,Aeromonassp. at 2-3%,Flavobacterium columnareat 1% andPseudomonas aeruginosaat 0.1-0.4%. Media supplemented with milk protein also increased the cell counts in biofilm as well as the protein incorporated into the biofilm matrix. These data suggest that relatively high concentrations of exogenous protein may serve as an environmental trigger for biofilm formation, particularly for pathogenic bacteria exposed to relatively high concentrations of protein in bodily fluids and mucosal surfaces.

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