Resistance to host antimicrobial peptides mediates resilience of gut commensals during infection and aging in Drosophila.

ABSTRACT: Resilience to short-term perturbations, like inflammation, is a fundamental feature of microbiota, yet the underlying mechanisms of microbiota resilience are incompletely understood. Here, we show that Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, a major Drosophila commensal, stably colonizes the fruit fly gut during infection and is resistant to Drosophila antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). By transposon screening, we identified L. plantarum mutants sensitive to AMPs. These mutants were impaired in peptidoglycan O-acetylation or teichoic acid D-alanylation, resulting in increased negative cell surface charge and higher affinity to cationic AMPs. AMP-sensitive mutants were cleared from the gut after infection and aging-induced gut inflammation in wild-type, but not in AMP-deficie

SUBMITTER: Arias-Rojas A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10483595 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature