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Microbial Diversity and Chemical Multiplicity of Culturable, Taxonomically Similar Bacterial Symbionts of the Leaf-Cutting Ant Acromyrmex coronatus

  • Invertebrate Microbiology
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Abstract

Insects are a highly diverse group, exploit a wide range of habitats, and harbor bacterial symbionts of largely unknown diversity. Insect-associated bacterial symbionts are underexplored but promising sources of bioactive compounds. The community of culturable bacteria associated with the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex coronatus (Fabricius) and the diversity of their metabolites produced were investigated. Forty-six phylotypes belonging to Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, and Proteobacteria were identified. The chemical profiles of 65 isolates were further analyzed by LC-MS/MS, and principal components analysis (PCA) was used to group the isolates according to their chemical profiles. Historically, selection of bacterial strains for drug discovery has been based on phenotypic and/or genotypic traits. Use of such traits may well impede the discovery of new compounds; in this study, several indistinguishable phylotypes cultured in identical nutritional and environmental conditions produced completely different chemical profiles. Our data also demonstrated the wide chemical diversity to be explored in insect-associated symbionts.

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Acknowledgments

Authors are greatly indebted to the two anonymous reviewers who greatly helped improve this manuscript.

Funding

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) provided a fellowship to AFCM (Process 2014/21584-3) and a research grant to FLC (Process 2011/50877-0).

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Author notes

  1. Ana Flávia Canovas Martinez and Luís Gustavo de Almeida contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratório de Interações em Insetos, Departamento de Entomologia e Acarologia, Escola Superior de Agricultura “Luiz de Queiroz”, Universidade de São Paulo, Av Pádua Dias 11, Piracicaba, SP, 13418-900, Brazil

    Ana Flávia Canovas Martinez, Luís Gustavo de Almeida & Fernando Luís Cônsoli

  2. Laboratório de Espectrometria de Massas aplicada a Produtos Naturais, Departamento de Química, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Av dos Bandeirantes 3900, Ribeirão Preto, SP, 14040-901, Brazil

    Luiz Alberto Beraldo Moraes

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  1. Ana Flávia Canovas Martinez
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  2. Luís Gustavo de Almeida
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  3. Luiz Alberto Beraldo Moraes
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  4. Fernando Luís Cônsoli
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Correspondence to Fernando Luís Cônsoli.

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Martinez, A.F.C., de Almeida, L.G., Moraes, L.A.B. et al. Microbial Diversity and Chemical Multiplicity of Culturable, Taxonomically Similar Bacterial Symbionts of the Leaf-Cutting Ant Acromyrmex coronatus. Microb Ecol 77, 1067–1081 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-019-01341-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-019-01341-7

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