Impact of the resident microbiota on the nutritional phenotype of Drosophila melanogaster.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Animals are chronically infected by benign and beneficial microorganisms that generally promote animal health through their effects on the nutrition, immune function and other physiological systems of the host. Insight into the host-microbial interactions can be obtained by comparing the traits of animals experimentally deprived of their microbiota and untreated animals. Drosophila melanogaster is an experimentally tractable system to study host-microbial interactions.

Methodology/principal findings

The nutritional significance of the microbiota was investigated in D. melanogaster bearing unmanipulated microbiota, demonstrated by 454 sequencing of 16S rRNA amplicons to be dominated by the α-proteobacterium Acetobacter, and experimentally deprived of the microbiota

SUBMITTER: Ridley EV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3346728 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature