Host genetic selection for cold tolerance shapes microbiome composition and modulates its response to temperature
- Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
- Agricultural Research Organization, Israel
Abstract
The hologenome concept proposes that microbes together with their hosting organism are an independent unit of selection. Motivated by this concept, we hypothesized that thermal acclimation in poikilothermic organisms is connected to their microbiome composition due to their inability to maintain their body temperature. To test this hypothesis, we used a unique experimental setup with a transgenerational selective breeding scheme for cold tolerance in tropical tilapias. We tested the effects of the selection on the gut microbiome and host transcriptomic response. Interestingly, we found that host genetic selection for thermal tolerance shapes microbiome composition and its response to cold. The microbiomes of cold-resistant fish showed higher resilience to temperature changes, indicating that the microbiome is shaped by its host's selection. These findings are consistent with the hologenome concept and highlight the connection between the host and its microbiome's response to the environment.
Data availability
Data has been deposited in the SRA under accession code SRP131209.
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Blue tilapia gut microbiomeNCBI Sequence Read Archive, SRP131209.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
European Research Council (Grant 640384)
- Fotini Kokou
- Goor Sasson
- Tali Nitzan
- Adi Doron-Faigenboim
- Sheenan Harpaz
- Avner Cnaani
- Itzhak Mizrahi
Israel Science Foundation (Grant number 1313/13)
- Fotini Kokou
- Goor Sasson
- Tali Nitzan
- Adi Doron-Faigenboim
- Sheenan Harpaz
- Avner Cnaani
- Itzhak Mizrahi
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (Grant number 863-0045)
- Fotini Kokou
- Goor Sasson
- Tali Nitzan
- Adi Doron-Faigenboim
- Sheenan Harpaz
- Avner Cnaani
- Itzhak Mizrahi
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This study was approved by the Agricultural Research Organization Committee for Ethics in Using Experimental Animals and was carried out in compliance with the current laws governing biological research in Israel (Approval number: 146/09IL).
Copyright
© 2018, Kokou et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Host genetic selection for cold tolerance shapes microbiome composition and modulates its response to temperature
eLife 7:e36398.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36398
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