Connecting structure and function from organisms to molecules in small-animal symbioses through chemo-histo-tomography.

ABSTRACT: Our understanding of metabolic interactions between small symbiotic animals and bacteria or parasitic eukaryotes that reside within their bodies is extremely limited. This gap in knowledge originates from a methodological challenge, namely to connect histological changes in host tissues induced by beneficial and parasitic (micro)organisms to the underlying metabolites. We addressed this challenge and developed chemo-histo-tomography (CHEMHIST), a culture-independent approach to connect anatomic structure and metabolic function in millimeter-sized symbiotic animals. CHEMHIST combines chemical imaging of metabolites based on mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) and microanatomy-based micro-computed X-ray tomography (micro-CT) on the same animal. Both high-resolution MSI and micro-CT allowed us to

SUBMITTER: Geier B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8300811 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature