Genome shrinkage and loss of nutrient-providing potential in the obligate symbiont of the primitive termite Mastotermes darwiniensis.

ABSTRACT: Beneficial microbial associations with insects are common and are classified as either one or a few intracellular species that are vertically transmitted and reside intracellularly within specialized organs or as microbial assemblages in the gut. Cockroaches and termites maintain at least one if not both beneficial associations. Blattabacterium is a flavobacterial endosymbiont of nearly all cockroaches and the termite Mastotermes darwiniensis and can use nitrogenous wastes in essential amino acid and vitamin biosynthesis. Key changes during the evolutionary divergence of termites from cockroaches are loss of Blattabacterium, diet shift to wood, acquisition of a specialized hindgut microbiota, and establishment of advanced social behavior. Termite gut microbes collaborate to fix nitrogen, d

SUBMITTER: Sabree ZL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3255634 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature