A Tale of Transmission: Aeromonas veronii Activity within Leech-Exuded Mucus
Basic science / microbiology published in Appl Environ Microbiol (2016)
Abstract
Transmission, critical to the establishment and persistence of host-associated microbiotas, also exposes symbionts to new environmental conditions. With horizontal transmission, these different conditions represent major lifestyle shifts. Yet genome-wide analyses of how microbes adjust their transcriptomes toward these dramatic shifts remain understudied. Here, we provide a comprehensive and comparative analysis of the global transcriptional profiles of a symbiont as it shifts between lifestyles during transmission. The gammaproteobacterium Aeromonas veronii is transmitted from the gut of the medicinal leech to other hosts via host mucosal castings, yet A. veronii can also transition from mucosal habitancy to a free-living lifestyle. These three lifestyles are characterized by distinct physiological constraints and consequently lifestyle-specific changes in the expression of stress-response genes. Mucus-bound A. veronii had the greatest expression in terms of both the number of loci and levels of transcription of stress-response mechanisms. However, these bacteria are still capable of proliferating within the mucus, suggesting the availability of nutrients within this environment. We found that A. veronii alters transcription of loci in a synthetic pathway that obtains and incorporates N-acetylglucosamine (NAG; a major component of mucus) into the bacterial cell wall, enabling proliferation. Our results demonstrate that symbionts undergo dramatic local adaptation, demonstrated by widespread transcriptional changes, throughout the process of transmission that allows them to thrive while they encounter new environments which further shape their ecology and evolution.
Abstract sourced from PubMed (NCBI) for the cited record. See the original publication for the authoritative version.
Zusammenfassung
Comparative transcriptomics of Aeromonas veronii across gut, mucus, and free-living lifestyles, revealing stress-response and N-acetylglucosamine-incorporation gene-expression shifts during horizontal transmission from leech mucus.
Warum dies für die Hirudotherapie relevant ist
This study provides a genome-wide transcriptional analysis of Aeromonas veronii, a symbiont of the medicinal leech gut, examining how it adjusts its transcriptome across three lifestyles during transmission: gut-associated, mucus-bound, and free-living. The abstract reports that mucus-bound A. veronii showed the greatest expression of stress-response genes but remained capable of proliferation, utilizing N-acetylglucosamine (a major mucus component) through altered expression of a synthetic cell-wall pathway. For ASH's domain, the relevance is limited to basic leech digestive-tract biology: the study examines a microorganism associated with the medicinal leech but is a microbial ecology and genomics investigation with no therapeutic component. The honest caveat is that the abstract addresses neither hirudotherapy outcomes, leech secretome composition, colony management, nor any clinical or applied question, and supports no claim about practical leech therapy.
Zitation
A Tale of Transmission: Aeromonas veronii Activity within Leech-Exuded Mucus.
Ott BM et al. · Applied and environmental microbiology, 2016
Verwandter klinischer Kontext
Erfahren Sie, wie diese Forschung mit der klinischen Praxis verknüpft ist
Zur ASH-Bibliothek hinzugefügt: May 27, 2026 · Letzte Aktualisierung der Website: June 18, 2026