Gut microbial ecology of Xenopus tadpoles across life stages

Thibault Scalvenzi (1) , Isabelle Clavereau (1) , Mickaël Bourge (2) , Nicolas Pollet (3, 1)

1 EGCE - Evolution, génomes, comportement et écologie
2 I2BC - Institut de Biologie Intégrative de la Cellule
3 ISSB - Institut de biologie systémique et synthétique

represented and under-studied in the literature. Among anuran amphibians, African clawed frogs of the Xenopus genus stand as well-characterized models with an in-depth knowledge of their developmental biological processes including their metamorphosis. In this study, we analyzed the succession of microbial communities and their activities across diverse body habitats of Xenopus tropicalis using dierent approaches including ow cytometry and 16s rDNA gene metabarcoding. We also evaluated the metabolic capacity of the premetamorphic tadpoles gut microbiome using metagenomic and metatranscriptomic sequencing. Results:We analyzed the bacterial components of the Xenopus gut microbiota, the adult gut biogeography, the succession of communities during ontogeny, the impact of the alimentation in shaping the tadpoles gut bacterial communities and the transmission of skin and fecal bacteria to the eggs. We also identied the most active gut bacteria and their metabolic contribution to tadpole physiology including carbohydrate breakdown, nitrogen recycling, essential amino-acids and vitamin biosynthesis. Conclusions: We present a comprehensive new microbiome dataset of a laboratory amphibian model. Our data provide evidences that studies on the Xenopus tadpole model can shed light on the interactions between a vertebrate host and its microbiome. We interpret our ndings in light of bile acids being key molecular components regulating the gut microbiome composition during amphibian development and metamorphosis. Further studies into the metabolic interactions between amphibian tadpoles and their microbiota during early development and metamorphosis should provide useful information on the evolution of host-microbiota interactions in vertebrates.

Domaines: Zoologie des vertébrés; Biologie moléculaire; Génétique animale; Génétique des populations [q-bio.PE]; Génomique, Transcriptomique et Protéomique [q-bio.GN]; Organisation et fonctions cellulaires [q-bio.SC]; Interactions cellulaires [q-bio.CB]; Embryologie et organogenèse; Morphogenèse; Bio-Informatique, Biologie Systémique [q-bio.QM]; Evolution [q-bio.PE]; Systématique, phylogénie et taxonomie

Thibault Scalvenzi, Isabelle Clavereau, Mickaël Bourge, Nicolas Pollet. Gut microbial ecology of Xenopus tadpoles across life stages. Peer Community Journal, 2021, 1, pp.e41. ⟨10.24072/pcjournal.53⟩. ⟨hal-03104285v2⟩