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Microbial Diversity Analyses of Fertilized Thitarodes Eggs and Soil Provide New Clues About the Occurrence of Chinese Cordyceps

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Abstract

Chinese cordyceps is a well-known fungus-larva complex with medicinal and economic importance. At present the occurrence of Chinese cordyceps has not been fully illuminated. In this study, the microbial diversities of fertilized Thitarodes eggs from sites A (high occurrence rates of Chinese cordyceps), B (low occurrence rates), and C (no Chinese cordyceps) were analyzed using 16S rRNA and ITS gene-sequencing technique. The previous sequencing data of soil from the same sites were conjointly analyzed. The results showed that bacterial communities among the eggs were significantly different. The bacterial diversity and evenness were much higher on site A. Wolbachia was overwhelmingly predominant in the eggs of sites B and C, while Spiroplasma showed preference on site A. The fungal between-group differences in the eggs were not as significant as that of bacteria. Purpureocillium in Cordyceps-related families showed preference on site A. Wolbachia, Spiroplasma, and Purpureocillium were inferred to be closely related to Chinese cordyceps occurrence. Intra-kingdom and inter-kingdom network analyses suggest that closer correlations of microbial communities (especially closer fungal positive correlations) in fertilized eggs might promote Chinese cordyceps occurrence. Besides, metabolic pathway analysis showed that in fertilized eggs or soil the number of bacterial metabolic pathways with significant differences in every comparison between two sites was greater than that of fungi. Collectively, this study provides novel information about the occurrence of Chinese cordyceps, contributing to the large-scale artificial cultivation of Chinese cordyceps.

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Data Availability

Most data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files, other data are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge Ozimeks Biotech Co., Ltd. (Shenzhen, Guangdong, China) for the sequencing.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81303155), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (Nos. 2018A030313094, 2020A151501457), the Discipline Construction Project of Guangdong Medical University (No. 4SG21014G), the “Group-type” Special Supporting Project for Educational Talents in Universities (No. 4SG19057G), and the Project for Young Innovative Talents in Ordinary Higher University of Guangdong Province (No. 2018GkQNCX050).

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  1. Yue-Hui Hong and Zhan-Hua Mai have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Basic Medicine, Guangdong Jiangmen Chinese Medicine College, Jiangmen, 529000, China

    Yue-Hui Hong

  2. Dongguan Key Laboratory of Environmental Medicine, School of Public Health, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, 523808, China

    Zhan-Hua Mai, Cheng-Ji Li, Qiu-Yi Zheng & Lian-Xian Guo

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Contributions

LXG conceived and designed the experiments. ZHM, YHH, CJL, and QYZ performed the experiments and analyzed the data. LXG and YHH wrote the paper. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Lian-Xian Guo.

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Hong, YH., Mai, ZH., Li, CJ. et al. Microbial Diversity Analyses of Fertilized Thitarodes Eggs and Soil Provide New Clues About the Occurrence of Chinese Cordyceps. Curr Microbiol 79, 229 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-022-02919-0

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