Previously unrecognized stages of species-specific colonization in the mutualism between Xenorhabdus bacteria and Steinernema nematodes.

ABSTRACT: The specificity of a horizontally transmitted microbial symbiosis is often defined by molecular communication between host and microbe during initial engagement, which can occur in discrete stages. In the symbiosis between Steinernema nematodes and Xenorhabdus bacteria, previous investigations focused on bacterial colonization of the intestinal lumen (receptacle) of the nematode infective juvenile (IJ), as this was the only known persistent, intimate and species-specific contact between the two. Here we show that bacteria colonize the anterior intestinal cells of other nematode developmental stages in a species-specific manner. Also, we describe three processes that only occur in juveniles that are destined to become IJs. First, a few bacterial cells colonize the nematode pharyngeal-intest

SUBMITTER: Chaston JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3740033 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature