Metamenu

Publications

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Publications in peer reviewed journals

8 Publications found
  • Hair eruption initiates and commensal skin microbiota aggravate adverse events of anti-EGFR therapy

    Klufa J, Bauer T, Hanson B, Herbold CW, Starkl P, Lichtenberger B, Srutkova D, Schulz D, Vujic I, Mohr T, Rappersberger K, Bodenmiller B, Kozakova H, Knapp S, Loy A, Sibilia M
    2019 - Sci Transl Med, 11: eaax2693

    Abstract: 

    Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)–targeted anticancer therapy induces stigmatizing skin toxicities affecting patients’ quality of life and therapy adherence. The lack of mechanistic details underlying these adverse events hampers their management. We found that EGFR/ERK signaling is required in LRIG1-positive stem cells during de novo hair eruption to secure barrier integrity and prevent the invasion of commensal microbiota and inflammatory skin disease. EGFR-deficient epidermis is permissive for microbiota outgrowth and displays an atopic-like TH2-dominated signature. The opening of the follicular ostia during hair eruption allows invasion of commensal microbiota into the hair follicle, initiating an additional TH1 and TH17 response culminating in chronic folliculitis. Restoration of epidermal ERK signaling via prophylactic FGF7 treatment or transgenic SOS expression rescues the barrier defect in the absence of EGFR, highlighting a therapeutic anchor point. These data reveal that commensal skin microbiota provoke atopic-like inflammatory skin diseases by invading into the follicular opening of erupting hair.

  • Organ transcriptomes of the lucinid clam Loripes orbiculatus (Poli, 1791) provide insights into their specialised roles in the biology of a chemosymbiotic bivalve.

    Yuen B, Polzin J, Petersen JM
    2019 - BMC genomics, 1: 820

    Abstract: 

    The lucinid clam Loripes orbiculatus lives in a nutritional symbiosis with sulphur-oxidizing bacteria housed in its gills. Although our understanding of the lucinid endosymbiont physiology and metabolism has made significant progress, relatively little is known about how the host regulates the symbiosis at the genetic and molecular levels. We generated transcriptomes from four L. orbiculatus organs (gills, foot, visceral mass, and mantle) for differential expression analyses, to better understand this clam's physiological adaptations to a chemosymbiotic lifestyle, and how it regulates nutritional and immune interactions with its symbionts.
    The transcriptome profile of the symbiont-housing gill suggests the regulation of apoptosis and innate immunity are important processes in this organ. We also identified many transcripts encoding ion transporters from the solute carrier family that possibly allow metabolite exchange between host and symbiont. Despite the clam holobiont's clear reliance on chemosynthesis, the clam's visceral mass, which contains the digestive tract, is characterised by enzymes involved in digestion, carbohydrate recognition and metabolism, suggesting that L. orbiculatus has a mixotrophic diet. The foot transcriptome is dominated by the biosynthesis of glycoproteins for the construction of mucus tubes, and receptors that mediate the detection of chemical cues in the environment.
    The transcriptome profiles of gills, mantle, foot and visceral mass provide insights into the molecular basis underlying the functional specialisation of bivalve organs adapted to a chemosymbiotic lifestyle.

  • Functional diversity enables multiple symbiont strains to coexist in deep-sea mussels.

    Ansorge R, Romano S, Sayavedra L, Porras MÁG, Kupczok A, Tegetmeyer HE, Dubilier N, Petersen JM
    2019 - Nat Microbiol, 12: 2487-2497

    Abstract: 

    Genetic diversity of closely related free-living microorganisms is widespread and underpins ecosystem functioning, but most evolutionary theories predict that it destabilizes intimate mutualisms. Accordingly, strain diversity is assumed to be highly restricted in intracellular bacteria associated with animals. Here, we sequenced metagenomes and metatranscriptomes of 18 Bathymodiolus mussel individuals from four species, covering their known distribution range at deep-sea hydrothermal vents in the Atlantic. We show that as many as 16 strains of intracellular, sulfur-oxidizing symbionts coexist in individual Bathymodiolus mussels. Co-occurring symbiont strains differed extensively in key functions, such as the use of energy and nutrient sources, electron acceptors and viral defence mechanisms. Most strain-specific genes were expressed, highlighting their potential to affect fitness. We show that fine-scale diversity is pervasive in Bathymodiolus sulfur-oxidizing symbionts, and hypothesize that it may be widespread in low-cost symbioses where the environment, rather than the host, feeds the symbionts.

  • Chemosymbiotic bivalves contribute to the nitrogen budget of seagrass ecosystems.

    Cardini U, Bartoli M, Lücker S, Mooshammer M, Polzin J, Lee RW, Micić V, Hofmann T, Weber M, Petersen JM
    2019 - ISME J, 12: 3131-3134

    Abstract: 

    In many seagrass sediments, lucinid bivalves and their sulfur-oxidizing symbionts are thought to underpin key ecosystem functions, but little is known about their role in nutrient cycles, particularly nitrogen. We used natural stable isotopes, elemental analyses, and stable isotope probing to study the ecological stoichiometry of a lucinid symbiosis in spring and fall. Chemoautotrophy appeared to dominate in fall, when chemoautotrophic carbon fixation rates were up to one order of magnitude higher as compared with the spring, suggesting a flexible nutritional mutualism. In fall, an isotope pool dilution experiment revealed carbon limitation of the symbiosis and ammonium excretion rates up to tenfold higher compared with fluxes reported for nonsymbiotic marine bivalves. These results provide evidence that lucinid bivalves can contribute substantial amounts of ammonium to the ecosystem. Given the preference of seagrasses for this nitrogen source, lucinid bivalves' contribution may boost productivity of these important blue carbon ecosystems.

  • Horizontally transmitted symbiont populations in deep-sea mussels are genetically isolated.

    Romero Picazo D, Dagan T, Ansorge R, Petersen JM, Dubilier N, Kupczok A
    2019 - ISME J, 12: 2954-2968

    Abstract: 

    Eukaryotes are habitats for bacterial organisms where the host colonization and dispersal among individual hosts have consequences for the bacterial ecology and evolution. Vertical symbiont transmission leads to geographic isolation of the microbial population and consequently to genetic isolation of microbiotas from individual hosts. In contrast, the extent of geographic and genetic isolation of horizontally transmitted microbiota is poorly characterized. Here we show that chemosynthetic symbionts of individual Bathymodiolus brooksi mussels constitute genetically isolated subpopulations. The reconstruction of core genome-wide strains from high-resolution metagenomes revealed distinct phylogenetic clades. Nucleotide diversity and strain composition vary along the mussel life span and individual hosts show a high degree of genetic isolation. Our results suggest that the uptake of environmental bacteria is a restricted process in B. brooksi, where self-infection of the gill tissue results in serial founder effects during symbiont evolution. We conclude that bacterial colonization dynamics over the host life cycle is thus an important determinant of population structure and genome evolution of horizontally transmitted symbionts.

  • Characterization of a thaumarchaeal symbiont that drives incomplete nitrification in the tropical sponge Ianthella basta.

    Moeller FU, Webster NS, Herbold CW, Behnam F, Domman D, Albertsen M, Mooshammer M, Markert S, Turaev D, Becher D, Rattei T, Schweder T, Richter A, Watzka M, Nielsen PH, Wagner M
    2019 - Environ. Microbiol., 10: 3831-3854
    Metabolic scheme of the AOA symbiont in I. basta

    Abstract: 

    Marine sponges represent one of the few eukaryotic groups that frequently harbour symbiotic members of the Thaumarchaeota, which are important chemoautotrophic ammonia-oxidizers in many environments. However, in most studies, direct demonstration of ammonia-oxidation by these archaea within sponges is lacking, and little is known about sponge-specific adaptations of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA). Here, we characterized the thaumarchaeal symbiont of the marine sponge Ianthella basta using metaproteogenomics, fluorescence in situ hybridization, qPCR and isotope-based functional assays. 'Candidatus Nitrosospongia ianthellae' is only distantly related to cultured AOA. It is an abundant symbiont that is solely responsible for nitrite formation from ammonia in I. basta that surprisingly does not harbour nitrite-oxidizing microbes. Furthermore, this AOA is equipped with an expanded set of extracellular subtilisin-like proteases, a metalloprotease unique among archaea, as well as a putative branched-chain amino acid ABC transporter. This repertoire is strongly indicative of a mixotrophic lifestyle and is (with slight variations) also found in other sponge-associated, but not in free-living AOA. We predict that this feature as well as an expanded and unique set of secreted serpins (protease inhibitors), a unique array of eukaryotic-like proteins, and a DNA-phosporothioation system, represent important adaptations of AOA to life within these ancient filter-feeding animals.

  • Symbiont-mediated defense against Legionella pneumophila in amoebae

    König L, Wentrup C, Schulz F, Wascher F, Escola S, Swanson MS, Buchrieser C, Horn M
    2019 - mBio, 10: e00333-19

    Abstract: 

    Legionella pneumophila is an important opportunistic pathogen for which environmental reservoirs are crucial for the infection of humans. In the environment, free-living amoebae represent key hosts providing nutrients and shelter for highly efficient intracellular proliferation of L. pneumophila, which eventually leads to lysis of the protist. However, the significance of other bacterial players for L. pneumophila ecology is poorly understood. In this study, we used a ubiquitous amoeba and bacterial endosymbiont to investigate the impact of this common association on L. pneumophilainfection. We demonstrate that L. pneumophila proliferation was severely suppressed in Acanthamoeba castellanii harboring the chlamydial symbiont Protochlamydia amoebophila. The amoebae survived the infection and were able to resume growth. Different environmental amoeba isolates containing the symbiont were equally well protected as different L. pneumophila isolates were diminished, suggesting ecological relevance of this symbiont-mediated defense. Furthermore, protection was not mediated by impaired L. pneumophila uptake. Instead, we observed reduced virulence of L. pneumophila released from symbiont-containing amoebae. Pronounced gene expression changes in the presence of the symbiont indicate that interference with the transition to the transmissive phase impedes the L. pneumophila infection. Finally, our data show that the defensive response of amoebae harboring P. amoebophila leaves the amoebae with superior fitness reminiscent of immunological memory. Given that mutualistic associations between bacteria and amoebae are widely distributed, P. amoebophila and potentially other amoeba endosymbionts could be key in shaping environmental survival, abundance, and virulence of this important pathogen, thereby affecting the frequency of human infection.

  • Mucispirillum schaedleri antagonizes Salmonella virulence to protect mice against colitis

    Herp S, Brugiroux S, Garzetti D, Ring D, Jochum LM, Beutler M, Eberl C, Hussain S, Walter S, Gerlach RG, Ruscheweyh HJ, Huson D, Sellin ME, Slack E, Hanson B, Loy A, Baines JF, Rausch P, Basic M, Bleich A, Berry D, Stecher B
    2019 - Cell Host Microbe, 25: 681-694

    Abstract: 

    The microbiota and the gastrointestinal mucus layer play a pivotal role in protection against non-typhoidal Salmonellaenterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Tm) colitis. Here, we analyzed the course of Salmonella colitis in mice lacking a functional mucus layer in the gut. Unexpectedly, in contrast to mucus-proficient littermates, genetically deficient mice were protected against Salmonella-induced gut inflammation in the streptomycin colitis model. This correlated with microbiota alterations and enrichment of the bacterial phylum Deferribacteres. Using gnotobiotic mice associated with defined bacterial consortia, we causally linked Mucispirillum schaedleri, currently the sole known representative of Deferribacteres present in the mammalian microbiota, to host protection against S. Tm colitis. Inhibition by M. schaedleri involves interference with S. Tm invasion gene expression, partly by competing for anaerobic electron acceptors. In conclusion, this study establishes M. schaedleri, a core member of the murine gut microbiota, as a key antagonist of S. Tm virulence in the gut.

Book chapters and other publications

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