昆虫肠道菌群的功能研究进展

昆虫肠道为某些微生物提供了一个特定的定殖环境,这些肠道菌群也为其宿主提供了很多潜在的有益作用。因而昆虫在一定范围和程度上表现出对肠道菌群的依赖并形成一种互惠互利的共生关系。近年来,随着高通量测序技术的广泛应用,促进了肠道菌群及其功能基因的研究。也为进一步了解如何区分非致病性菌(共生菌)和致病菌(病原菌)的致病机理、调控昆虫肠道菌并用来防治害虫或保护授粉昆虫在内的有益昆虫奠定了基础。本文概述了昆虫肠道菌群定殖环境、起源和进化以及传播方式,综述了近年来昆虫肠道菌群功能研究的最新进展,并对今后昆虫肠道菌群的研究方向进行了展望。     

昆虫肠道微生物的多样性、功能及应用

昆虫肠道微生物种类繁多、数量巨大,在与宿主长期的协同进化过程中,不仅形成极为多样的种群结构,也进化出多样的生物学功能,对宿主的营养、生理、发育、防御、抗逆等方面都产生显著影响。近年来,越来越多的昆虫肠道微生物的多样性和生物学特性被揭示,具有农业、能源和环保价值的众多微生物种类和活性基因得到了开发,展现出巨大的应用潜力。本文将从昆虫肠道微生物的多样性、生物学功能、应用三个方面对近年来的研究进展进行总结,并进行展望。     

昆虫肠道微生物分离培养策略及研究进展

昆虫肠道作为一种特殊生境,生存着多种多样的共生微生物,并且肠道内的很多微生物与自然界其他生境的微生物种类显著不同。基于对纯培养微生物的研究,科学家们发现,肠道微生物与昆虫营养、生长发育及免疫等功能密切相关。因此,分离培养是发现微生物新种类、新基因和新功能的基础。然而,自然界可培养的微生物大约只占总数的1%。为了能够对更多的微生物进行分离和培养,近二十年来,微生物学家们发展了诸多新的培养技术和策略并利用它们从昆虫肠道分离出了很多新的难培养微生物。这些新的微生物种类极大地丰富了我们对肠道共生微生物生理作用与功能的认识。以此为基础,本文综述了昆虫肠道微生物分离培养的策略及研究进展,并对未来该领域的发展进行了展望。     

昆虫肠道菌群组学研究及功能和应用进展

近年来,随着昆虫微生态领域研究的发展,昆虫肠道菌群组学研究越来越受关注。由于昆虫肠道菌群种类繁杂、数量巨大、功能多样,因此,其组学研究方法的选取至关重要,与研究是否科学、高效及合理密切相关。常见的昆虫肠道菌群组学研究方法包括宏基因组学、蛋白质组学、代谢组学、培养组学及多组学技术。昆虫肠道菌群在与宿主长期共同进化中对宿主的营养代谢、生长发育、保护防御等起到了至关重要的作用,随着其功能研究的不断深入,昆虫肠道菌群应用研究也越来越广泛。本文将从昆虫肠道菌群的概述、组学研究方法的选择、昆虫肠道菌群的功能及应用4个方面,对近年来的研究进行总结,为昆虫肠道菌群的深入研究提供文献参考。     

昆虫肠道微生物的研究进展和应用前景

昆虫肠道的独特结构和理化性质为多种多样的微生物定殖提供了特殊环境,肠道微生物的群落组成与宿主昆虫的生长发育、代谢繁殖等生命活动密切相关。种类丰富多样、生态位分布广泛的昆虫体内含有大量特化的肠道微生物群落,经过长期协同进化形成的共生关系具有多方面无可替代的优势。这种相对稳定的共生关系对昆虫整个生命周期具有极其重要的作用,肠道微生物不仅为宿主提供重要的营养物质、协助消化食物、提高宿主防御和解毒能力,还影响宿主昆虫的寿命、发育周期以及交配与繁殖能力等。同时,昆虫肠道微生物在农业、生态、医药以及能源环保等多个学科领域也显示出了巨大的应用前景。本文就昆虫肠道微生物群落的多样性、功能和影响肠道微生物生存因素,以及应用前景等方面进行综述,讨论了昆虫肠道微生物的最新研究进展。     

昆虫肠道微生物稳态的调控机制

稳定的肠道微生物内环境是肠道微生物与肠道免疫反应相互作用的结果。在不断的进食过程中,昆虫肠道微生物种类和数量不断发生变化,肠道微生物与肠道上皮细胞之间形成了复杂的、动态的平衡机制。昆虫肠道上皮细胞可以感知有益和有害条件并利用免疫调控通路来实现微生物种群稳态的动态调节,例如双重氧化酶-活性氧(dual oxidase-reactive oxygen species, Duox-ROS)系统和免疫缺陷(immunodeficiency, Imd)信号通路可以感知肠道微生物数量变化并参与到肠道微生物稳态调节过程。除此之外,肠道微生物群也会通过群体感应(quorum sensing, QS)释放相应的效应因子来调节菌群行为,间接性起到稳态调节的作用。因此,本文综述了昆虫肠道中物理防御、免疫信号通路以及肠道微生物通过QS在昆虫肠道微生物稳态维持中的作用,加深对肠道组织与肠道微生物互作关系的认识。未来将继续对更多种类昆虫体内微生物的稳态调控机制及调控机制间的作用关系进行研究,并基于调控机制设计开发改变肠道微生物稳态的新型农药,为实现有效害虫防治提供新的靶标和思路。     

蜜蜂肠道微生物群落研究进展

蜜蜂是重要的农业传粉昆虫,对全球农业及生态维护有着不可替代的作用。然而近年来美国、欧洲等地出现蜂群大量消失的迹象,给农业经济带来严重威胁。近年来人们逐渐发现蜂肠道微生物与维持宿主健康之间存在着联系,蜜蜂属(Apis)和熊蜂属(Bombus)个体都带有简单、特异的肠道菌群,并且蜂肠道菌群与人类等其他动物具有诸多相似之处,例如其通过社会性接触稳定传播的特性。本综述介绍了近年来通过体外培养、高通量测序等技术对蜂肠道微生物与宿主关系的研究,特别是其简化的菌群结构、宿主特异性,及其对蜜蜂食物消化、营养供给、病虫抵抗等方面的作用,并探讨了未来基于我国特有蜂种研究的方向,及蜜蜂作为优良的社会性动物模式体系对未来人类营养健康研究的可行性。     

蝗虫肠道微生物研究进展

蝗虫自古以来是我国农林牧业的一大害虫,蝗虫聚集成灾对农业造成了巨大的损失,国内外学者也因此对其进行了深入的研究。随着科研工作者对昆虫肠道微生态学理论的逐渐重视,蝗虫的肠道微生物也成为了研究的重点,同时测序技术的迅速发展促进了蝗虫肠道微生物的研究。本文从蝗虫肠道菌群的多样性、功能及研究方法入手,对近年来蝗虫肠道微生物的研究进展进行总结,并对今后的研究进行展望。     

鳞翅目昆虫肠道微生物的多样性及其与宿主的相互作用

作为地球上数量最多的动物群体,昆虫种类繁多、形态各异,其肠道内也栖息着大量的微生物,这些微生物直接或间接对宿主发挥着重要的作用,如参与消化、吸收利用营养物质、合成信息素,同时在抵御外来病原的侵入与定殖、提高宿主免疫活性的过程中也起着关键作用。鳞翅目是昆虫纲中仅次于鞘翅目的第二大目,其中既有严重危害农作物的害虫,又有能够授粉和产生经济效益的益虫,对生态系统和人类影响深远。近年来,随着新方法、新技术在肠道微生态学上的应用,国内外鳞翅目昆虫肠道微生物的研究也日趋热烈。本文将围绕家蚕Bombyx mori、海灰翅夜蛾Spodoptera littoralis、小菜蛾Plutella xylostella等几种代表性鳞翅目昆虫,介绍目前为止针对鳞翅目昆虫肠道微生物组的研究,包括肠道的内环境、微生物的多样性及其研究方法,随后对已明确的鳞翅目昆虫肠道微生物的组成,以及共生菌具体对宿主代谢解毒、免疫健康等方面做出的贡献进行分析,以期为进一步深入探究鳞翅目昆虫肠道微生物打下基础,以及转化这些知识来控制害虫(海灰翅夜蛾、小菜蛾等),促进益虫(家蚕等)生长,确保农业和经济更好地发展。     

基于VOSviewer和CiteSpace的昆虫肠道微生物领域可视化分析

【背景】近年来，昆虫肠道微生物领域受到科研工作者的广泛关注，相应发表了大量的科研论文和著作。然而目前尚缺乏对昆虫肠道微生物全面、系统的文献计量分析。【目的】了解国内外昆虫肠道微生物领域的历史、研究热点和新兴趋势。【方法】以昆虫肠道微生物为搜索主题对中国知网(China National Knowledge Infrastructure, CNKI)数据库和Web of Science (WOS)数据库进行检索，利用文献计量工具VOSviewer和Cite Space对关键词进行分析。【结果】1991-2022年间该领域全球研究发文量整体呈现上升趋势，国内外对昆虫肠道微生物领域的关注点和研究方向逐渐扩大。关键词聚类锚定了3个新兴研究领域：昆虫饮食(insect meal)、次生代谢物(secondary metabolites)和生物降解(biodegradation)。【结论】基于文献计量学研究的发现提供了昆虫肠道微生物领域的现状和趋势，可能有助于确定该领域的热点话题和探索新的方向。     

Dietary input of microbes and host genetic variation shape among-population differences in stickleback gut microbiota

To explain differences in gut microbial communities we must determine how processes regulating microbial community assembly (colonization, persistence) differ among hosts and affect microbiota composition. We surveyed the gut microbiota of threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) from 10 geographically clustered populations and sequenced environmental samples to track potential colonizing microbes and quantify the effects of host environment and genotype. Gut microbiota composition and diversity varied among populations. These among-population differences were associated with multiple covarying ecological variables: habitat type (lake, stream, estuary), lake geomorphology and food- (but not water-) associated microbiota. Fish genotype also covaried with gut microbiota composition; more genetically divergent populations exhibited more divergent gut microbiota. Our results suggest that population level differences in stickleback gut microbiota may depend more on internal sorting processes (host genotype) than on colonization processes (transient environmental effects).     

动物宿主——肠道微生物代谢轴研究进展

肠道中栖息着数量庞大且复杂多样的微生物菌群,在维持宿主肠道微环境稳态中发挥重要作用。微生物菌群可以利用宿主肠道的营养素,发酵产生代谢产物,与宿主机体形成宿主—微生物代谢轴(host-microbe metabolic axis)。该代谢轴既能影响营养素吸收和能量代谢,又可调控宿主各项生理过程。本文主要阐述宿主-肠道微生物代谢轴的概念、肠-肝轴、肠-脑轴、肠道微生物与宿主肠道代谢轴的互作以及对机体健康的影响。     

Gut microbes as future therapeutics in treating inflammatory and infectious diseases: Lessons from recent findings

The human gut microbiota has been the interest of extensive research in recent years and our knowledge on using the potential capacity of these microbes are growing rapidly. Microorganisms colonized throughout the gastrointestinal tract of human are coevolved through symbiotic relationship and can influence physiology, metabolism, nutrition and immune functions of an individual. The gut microbes are directly involved in conferring protection against pathogen colonization by inducing direct killing, competing with nutrients and enhancing the response of the gut-associated immune repertoire. Damage in the microbiome (dysbiosis) is linked with several life-threatening outcomes viz. inflammatory bowel disease, cancer, obesity, allergy, and auto-immune disorders. Therefore, the manipulation of human gut microbiota came out as a potential choice for therapeutic intervention of the several human diseases. Herein, we review significant studies emphasizing the influence of the gut microbiota on the regulation of host responses in combating infectious and inflammatory diseases alongside describing the promises of gut microbes as future therapeutics.     

Microbial programming of health and disease starts during fetal life

The pioneer microbiota of the neonatal gut are essential for gut maturation, and metabolic and immunologic programming. Recent research has shown that early bacterial colonization may impact the occurrence of disease later in life (microbial programming). Despite early conflicting evidence, it has long been considered that the womb is a sterile environment and human microbial colonization begins at birth. In the last few years, several findings have reiterated the presence of microbes in infant first stool (meconium) and pointed to the existence of in utero microbial colonization of the infant gut. The dominant bacterial taxa detected in meconium specimens belong to the Enterobacteriaceae family (Escherichia genus) and lactic acid bacteria (notably members of the genera Leuconostoc, Enterococcus, and Lactococcus). Maternal atopy promotes dominance of Enterobacteriaceae in newborn meconium, which in turn may lead to respiratory problems in the infant. This microbial interaction with the host immune system may in fact, originate during fetal life. Our review evaluates the evidence for an intrauterine origin of meconium microbiota, their composition and influences, and potential clinical implications on infant health. Birth Defects Research (Part C) 105:265–277, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Microbial Community Profiling to Investigate Transmission of Bacteria Between Life Stages of the Wood-Boring Beetle, Anoplophora glabripennis

Many insects harbor specific bacteria in their digestive tract, and these gut microbiota often play important roles in digestion and nutrient provisioning. While it is common for a given insect species to harbor a representative gut microbial community as a population, how this community is acquired and maintained from generation to generation is not known for most xylophagous insects, except termites. In this study, we examined acquisition of gut microbiota by the wood-feeding beetle, Anoplophora glabripennis, by identifying and comparing microbial community members among different life stages of the insect and with microbes it encounters in the environment. Automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis was employed to compare bacterial communities present in the egg and larval stages of A. glabripennis as well as with microbes found in the oviposition site and the surrounding woody tissue. Multivariate analyses were used to identify relationships between sample type and specific bacterial types (operational taxonomic units). From this analysis, bacteria that were derived from the environment, the oviposition site, and/or the egg were identified and compared with taxa found in larvae. Results showed that while some larval microbes were derived from environmental sources, other members of the larval microbial community appear to be vertically transmitted. These findings could lead to a better understanding of which microbial species are critical for the survival of this insect and to development of techniques that could be used to alter this community to disrupt the digestive physiology of the host insect as a biological control measure.     

Web of ecological interactions in an experimental gut microbiota

The dynamics of all ecosystems are dictated by intrinsic, density‐dependent mechanisms and by density‐independent environmental forcing. In spite of the importance of the gastrointestinal microbiota in health and disease, the ecology of this system remains largely unknown. Here, we take an ecological approach to gut microbial community analysis, with statistical modelling of time series data from chemostats. This approach removes effects of host forcing, allowing us to describe a network of intrinsic interactions determining the dynamic structure of an experimental gut microbiota. Surprisingly, the main colonization pattern in this simplified model system resembled that of the human infant gut, suggesting a potentially important role of density‐dependent interactions in the early gut microbiota. Knowledge of ecological structures in microbial systems may provide us with a means of controlling such systems by modifying the strength and nature of interactions among microbes and between the microbes and their environment.     

Gut microbiota of a long‐distance migrant demonstrates resistance against environmental microbe incursions

Migratory animals encounter suites of novel microbes as they move between disparate sites during their migrations, and are frequently implicated in the global spread of pathogens. Although wild animals have been shown to source a proportion of their gut microbiota from their environment, the susceptibility of migrants to enteric infections may be dependent upon the capacity of their gut microbiota to resist incorporating encountered microbes. To evaluate migrants’ susceptibility to microbial invasion, we determined the extent of microbial sourcing from the foraging environment and examined how this influenced gut microbiota dynamics over time and space in a migratory shorebird, the Red‐necked stint Calidris ruficollis. Contrary to previous studies on wild, nonmigratory hosts, we found that stint on their nonbreeding grounds obtained very little of their microbiota from their environment, with most individuals sourcing only 0.1% of gut microbes from foraging sediment. This microbial resistance was reflected at the population level by only weak compositional differences between stint flocks occupying ecologically distinct sites, and by our finding that stint that had recently migrated 10,000 km did not differ in diversity or taxonomy from those that had inhabited the same site for a full year. However, recent migrants had much greater abundances of the genus Corynebacterium, suggesting a potential microbial response to either migration or exposure to a novel environment. We conclude that the gut microbiota of stint is largely resistant to invasion from ingested microbes and that this may have implications for their susceptibility to enteric infections during migration.     

Molecular Paths Linking Metabolic Diseases,Gut Microbiota Dysbiosis and Enterobacteria Infections

Alterations of both ecology and functions of gut microbiota are conspicuous traits of several inflammatory pathologies, notably metabolic diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. Moreover, the proliferation of enterobacteria, subdominant members of the intestinal microbial ecosystem, has been shown to be favored by Western diet, the strongest inducer of both metabolic diseases and gut microbiota dysbiosis. The inner interdependence between the host and the gut microbiota is based on a plethora of molecular mechanisms by which host and intestinal microbes modify each other. Among these mechanisms are as follows: (i) the well-known metabolic impact of short chain fatty acids, produced by microbial fermentation of complex carbohydrates from plants; (ii) a mutual modulation of miRNAs expression, both on the eukaryotic (host) and prokaryotic (gut microbes) side; (iii) the production by enterobacteria of virulence factors such as the genotoxin colibactin, shown to alter the integrity of host genome and induce a senescence-like phenotype in vitro; (iv) the microbial excretion of outer-membrane vesicles, which, in addition to other functions, may act as a carrier for multiple molecules such as toxins to be delivered to target cells. In this review, I describe the major molecular mechanisms by which gut microbes exert their metabolic impact at a multi-organ level (the gut barrier being in the front line) and support the emerging triad of metabolic diseases, gut microbiota dysbiosis and enterobacteria infections.     

The interplay between diet,gut microbes,and host epigenetics in health and disease

The mechanisms linking the function of microbes to host health are becoming better defined but are not yet fully understood. One recently explored mechanism involves microbe-mediated alterations in the host epigenome. Consumption of specific dietary components such as fiber, glucosinolates, polyphenols, and dietary fat has a significant impact on gut microbiota composition and function. Microbial metabolism of these dietary components regulates important epigenetic functions that ultimately influences host health. Diet-mediated alterations in the gut microbiome regulate the substrates available for epigenetic modifications like DNA methylation or histone methylation and/or acetylation. In addition, generation of microbial metabolites such as butyrate inhibits the activity of core epigenetic enzymes like histone deacetylases (HDACs). Reciprocally, the host epigenome also influences gut microbial composition. Thus, complex interactions exist between these three factors. This review comprehensively examines the interplay between diet, gut microbes, and host epigenetics in modulating host health. Specifically, the dietary impact on gut microbiota structure and function that in-turn regulates host epigenetics is evaluated in terms of promoting protection from disease development.