The microbiome of the invertebrate model host Galleria mellonella is dominated by Enterococcus

The popularity of Galleria mellonella as invertebrate model is increasing rapidly, because it forms an attractive alternative to study bacterial, fungal and viral infections, toxin biology, and to screen antimicrobial drugs. For a number of vertebrate and invertebrate animal and plant models, it has...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Animal microbiome 2019-09, Vol.1 (1), p.7-7, Article 7
Main Authors: Allonsius, Camille Nina, Van Beeck, Wannes, De Boeck, Ilke, Wittouck, Stijn, Lebeer, Sarah
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal models
Animals
Antibiotics
Antimicrobial agents
Colonization
Commensals
Drug testing
Enterococcus
Galleria mellonella
Greater wax moth
Immunosuppressive agents
Insects
Invertebrate host
Invertebrates
Larvae
Low diversity
Microbiomes
Microbiota
rRNA 16S
Short Report
Skin
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Summary:The popularity of Galleria mellonella as invertebrate model is increasing rapidly, because it forms an attractive alternative to study bacterial, fungal and viral infections, toxin biology, and to screen antimicrobial drugs. For a number of vertebrate and invertebrate animal and plant models, it has been established that the commensals present within the microbial communities on various host surfaces will influence the host's immune and growth development state and the colonization capacity of newly introduced micro-organisms. The microbial communities of Galleria mellonella larvae have, however, not yet been well characterized. In this study, we present the bacterial communities that were found by 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing on different body sites of G. mellonella larvae. These communities showed very little diversity and were mostly dominated by one Enterococcus taxon. In addition, we found that the production conditions (as 'bait' for fishing or under more controlled 'research grade' conditions - with or without hormones and antibiotics) appear to have little impact on the microbiota of the larvae. Establishment of the simplicity of the microbiota of G. mellonella larvae underlines the potential of the larvae as a model host system for microbiome-host interactions.
ISSN:2524-4671
2524-4671
DOI:10.1186/s42523-019-0010-6