Microbiota Perturbation or Elimination Can Inhibit Normal Development and Elicit a Starvation-Like Response in an Omnivorous Model Invertebrate
Arturo Vera‐Ponce de León, Benjamin C. Jahnes, Alejandro Otero-Bravo, Zakee L. Sabree
Abstract
cockroaches resulted in growth defects and severely disrupted gene networks that regulate development, which highlights the importance of gut microbiota in these host processes. Absence of gut microbiota elicited a starvation-like transcriptional response in which growth and development were inhibited while nutrient scavenging was enhanced. Additionally, reintroduction of a subset of cockroach gut bacterial commensals did not broadly recover normal expression patterns, illustrating that a particular microbiome composition may be necessary for normal host development. Invertebrate microbiota model systems that enable disentangling complex, species-rich communities are essential for linking microbial taxa to specific host phenotypes.