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About the Authors:
Lucie Kešnerová
Contributed equally to this work with: Lucie Kešnerová, Ruben A. T. Mars
Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Visualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing
Affiliation: Department of Fundamental Microbiology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
Ruben A. T. Mars
Contributed equally to this work with: Lucie Kešnerová, Ruben A. T. Mars
Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Validation, Visualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing
Affiliation: Institute of Molecular Systems Biology, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
Kirsten M. Ellegaard
Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Writing - review & editing
Affiliation: Department of Fundamental Microbiology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
Michaël Troilo
Roles Data curation, Methodology, Validation
Affiliation: Department of Fundamental Microbiology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
Uwe Sauer
Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Resources, Supervision, Writing - review & editing
Affiliation: Institute of Molecular Systems Biology, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
Philipp Engel
Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing
* E-mail: [email protected]
Affiliation: Department of Fundamental Microbiology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4678-6200Abstract
It is presently unclear how much individual community members contribute to the overall metabolic output of a gut microbiota. To address this question, we used the honey bee, which harbors a relatively simple and remarkably conserved gut microbiota with striking parallels to the mammalian system and importance for bee health. Using untargeted metabolomics, we profiled metabolic changes in gnotobiotic bees that were colonized with the complete microbiota reconstituted from cultured strains. We then determined the contribution of individual community members in mono-colonized bees and recapitulated our findings using in vitro cultures. Our results show that the honey bee gut microbiota utilizes a wide range of pollen-derived substrates, including flavonoids and outer pollen wall components, suggesting a key role for degradation of recalcitrant secondary plant metabolites and pollen digestion. In turn, multiple species were responsible for the accumulation of organic acids and aromatic compound degradation intermediates. Moreover, a specific gut symbiont, Bifidobacterium asteroides, stimulated the production of host hormones known to impact bee development. While we found evidence for cross-feeding interactions, approximately 80% of the identified metabolic changes were...