AUTHOR=Futo Momir , Armitage Sophie A. O. , Kurtz Joachim 

TITLE=Microbiota Plays a Role in Oral Immune Priming in Tribolium castaneum

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology

VOLUME=6

YEAR=2016

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2015.01383

DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2015.01383

ISSN=1664-302X

ABSTRACT=<p>Animals are inhabited by a diverse community of microorganisms. The relevance of such microbiota is increasingly being recognized across a broad spectrum of species, ranging from sponges to primates, revealing various beneficial roles that microbes can play. The red flour beetle <italic>Tribolium castaneum</italic> represents a well-established experimental model organism for studying questions in ecology and evolution, however, the relevance of its microbial community is still largely unknown. <italic>T. castaneum</italic> larvae orally exposed to bacterial components of the entomopathogen <italic>Bacillus thuringiensis</italic> bv. <italic>tenebrionis</italic> showed increased survival upon a subsequent challenge with spores of this bacterium. To investigate whether <italic>T. castaneum</italic> microbiota plays a role in this phenomenon, we established a protocol for raising microbe-free larvae and subsequently tested whether they differ in their ability to mount such a priming response. Here we demonstrate that larvae with significantly lowered microbial loads, show decreased survival upon secondary challenge with <italic>B. thuringiensis</italic> bv. <italic>tenebrionis</italic> spores, compared to animals that were allowed to regain their microbiota before priming. Although the exact mechanism of oral immune priming is unclear, we here suggest that microbiota plays a crucial role in oral immune priming in this species.</p>