Abstract
Abstract
Background
Recently, increasing evidence supports that some complex diseases are not attributed to a given pathogen, but dysbiosis in the host intestinal microbiota (IM). The full intestinal ecosystem alterations, rather than a single pathogen, are associated with white feces syndrome (WFS), a globally severe non-infectious shrimp disease, while no experimental evidence to explore the causality. Herein, we conducted comprehensive metagenomic and metabolomic analysis, and intestinal microbiota transplantation (IMT) to investigate the causal relationship between IM dysbiosis and WFS.
Results
Compared to the Control shrimp, we found dramatically decreased microbial richness and diversity in WFS shrimp. Ten genera, such as Vibrio, Candidatus Bacilloplasma, Photobacterium, and Aeromonas, were overrepresented in WFS, whereas 11 genera, including Shewanella, Chitinibacter, and Rhodobacter were enriched in control. The divergent changes in these populations might contribute the observation that a decline of pathways conferring lipoic acid metabolism and mineral absorption in WFS. Meanwhile, some sorts of metabolites, especially lipids and organic acids, were found to be related to the IM alteration in WFS. Integrated with multiomics and IMT, we demonstrated that significant alterations in the community composition, functional potentials, and metabolites of IM were closely linked to shrimp WFS. The distinguished metabolites which were attributed to the IM dysbiosis were validated by feed-supplementary challenge. Both homogenous selection and heterogeneous selection process were less pronounced in WFS microbial community assembly. Notably, IMT shrimp from WFS donors eventually developed WFS clinical signs, while the dysbiotic IM can be recharacterized in recipient shrimp.
Conclusions
Collectively, our findings offer solid evidence of the causality between IM dysbiosis and shrimp WFS, which exemplify the ‘microecological Koch’s postulates’ (an intestinal microbiota dysbiosis, a disease) in disease etiology, and inspire our cogitation on etiology from an ecological perspective.
Funder
the China Agriculture Research System
China-ASEAN Maritime Cooperation Fund
Guangdong MEPP Fund
the Guangzhou Science Technology and Innovation Commission Project
the Guangdong Ocean and Fishery Bureau Project
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
Microbiology (medical),Microbiology
Reference61 articles.
1. Koch R, Investigations into bacteria: V. The etiology of anthrax, based on the ontogenesis of Bacillus anthracis. Cohns Beitrage zur Biologie der Pflanzen (in German). 1876;2:277–330.
2. Khan MJ, Gerasimidis K, Edwards CA, Shaikh MG. Role of gut microbiota in the aetiology of obesity: proposed mechanisms and review of the literature. J Obes. 2016;2016:7353642.
3. Jie Z, Xia H, Zhong SL, Feng Q, Li S, Liang S, Zhong H, Liu Z, Gao Y, Zhao H, et al. The gut microbiome in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Nat Commun. 2017;8:845.
4. Zhang X, Deeke SA, Ning Z, Starr AE, Butcher J, Li J, Mayne J, Cheng K, Liao B, Li L, et al. Metaproteomics reveals associations between microbiome and intestinal extracellular vesicle proteins in pediatric inflammatory bowel disease. Nat Commun. 2018;9:2873.
5. Just S, Mondot S, Ecker J, Wegner K, Rath E, Gau L, Streidl T, Hery-Arnaud G, Schmidt S, Lesker TR, et al. The gut microbiota drives the impact of bile acids and fat source in diet on mouse metabolism. Microbiome. 2018;6:134.