Cooperative Metabolism in a Three-Partner Insect-Bacterial Symbiosis Revealed by Metabolic Modeling.

ABSTRACT: An important factor determining the impact of microbial symbionts on their animal hosts is the balance between the cost of nutrients consumed by the symbionts and the benefit of nutrients released back to the host, but the quantitative significance of nutrient exchange in symbioses involving multiple microbial partners has rarely been addressed. In this study on the association between two intracellular bacterial symbionts, "Candidatus Portiera aleyrodidarum" and "Candidatus Hamiltonella defensa," and their animal host, the whitefly Bemisia tabaci, we apply metabolic modeling to investigate host-symbiont nutrient exchange. Our in silico analysis revealed that >60% of the essential amino acids and related metabolites synthesized by "Candidatus Portiera ale

SUBMITTER: Ankrah NYD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5512215 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature