FISHing for Rickettsia in tardigrades: additional evidence for tardigrade endosymbionts
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2023-07-22
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© 2023 The Linnean Society of London
Abstract
Many ecdysozoans harbour endosymbiotic bacteria within their microbiota, and these endosymbionts can have a range of positive and negative effects on their hosts. Recent 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing studies have provided evidence for endosymbionts within the tardigrade microbiota. In a previous amplicon study, we determined that sequences corresponding to the endosymbiotic genus Rickettsia were significantly more associated with tardigrades than with the substrate from which they were isolated. Here, we performed fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) using a Rickettsia-specific probe, RickB1, to determine if Rickettsia could be found in tardigrades. RickB1 and a probe targeting most bacteria, EUB338, colocalized within tardigrade tissues, indicating the presence of Rickettsia. We also performed FISH using RickB1 and a nonsense probe, which allowed us to distinguish between false-positives and true positives. This method revealed RickB1 signals in tardigrades that were not due to erroneous probe binding, providing further evidence that Rickettsia is present in tardigrades. Future research will be necessary to determine the effects, if any, of these endosymbionts on their tardigrade hosts.
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This article is published as Bienvenido W Tibbs-Cortes and others, FISHing for Rickettsia in tardigrades: additional evidence for tardigrade endosymbionts, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2023;, zlad081, https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlad081. Posted with permission.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.