Facultative endosymbiosis between cellulolytic protists and methanogenic archaea in the gut of the Formosan termite Coptotermes formosanus.

ABSTRACT: Anaerobic protists frequently harbour methanogenic archaea, which apparently contribute to the hosts' fermentative metabolism by consuming excess H₂. However, the ecological properties of endosymbiotic methanogens remain elusive in many cases. Here we investigated the ecology and genome of the endosymbiotic methanogen of the Cononympha protists in the hindgut of the termite Coptotermes formosanus. Microscopic and 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing analyses revealed that a single species, designated here "Candidatus Methanobrevibacter cononymphae", is associated with both Cononympha leidyi and Cononympha koidzumii and that its infection rate in Cononympha cells varied from 0.0% to 99.8% among termite colonies. Fine-scale network analysis indica

SUBMITTER: Kaneko M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11287868 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature