(Sm) Streptomycin; (Km) Kanamycin; (Gm) Gentamycin; (Amp) Ampicillin; (PnG) Penicillin G;
(Tet) Tetracycline; (Cm) Chloramphenicol; (Rif) Rifampicin. Overall, the assessed selleck chemical physiological characteristics strongly varied across the monophyletic clade of Streptomyces symbionts, with the strains isolated from Eurasian/African Philanthus species showing the lowest metabolic versatility, followed by the South American Trachypus, while Philanthinus and the North American Philanthus species harboured symbionts that were more flexible in terms of nitrogen assimilation and antibiotic resistance. Diversity of symbiont Selleckchem MLN8237 strains
within individual beewolf antennae Since populations of symbiotic Streptomyces suffer significant bottlenecks during vertical transmission [26], genetic diversity within individual antennae could be expected to be low. However, recent phylogenetic analyses provided evidence for relatively frequent horizontal symbiont exchange among host species, raising the question whether individual antennae may in fact simultaneously harbour different bacterial lineages. Therefore, we set out to assess the diversity of symbionts growing within the same antenna. For this analysis we used the antennae of two P. multimaculatus and one P. psyche specimen for the isolation of individual symbiont micro-colonies. These biovars were selected because in liquid medium they formed small
(about 1 mm), compact, well-separated colonies. 24 individual colonies of each strain were harvested from the original enrichments and subjected to sequence analysis of the gyrB gene fragment, which provides higher phylogenetic resolution than the 16S rRNA gene. Calpain Perhaps due to different cell wall thickness, colony PCR and further sequence analysis succeeded with different efficiencies: 21 and 18 high quality sequences were obtained from the two ‘multimaculatus’ specimens (samples 570 and 571, respectively), but only six sequences from the ‘psyche’ biovar. Sequence analysis of gyrB revealed no heterogeneity among the analyzed isolates within each host individual, suggesting low levels of (micro) diversity or even clonality of the symbionts in individual beewolf antennae. Opportunistic bacteria Beewolf antennae are constantly exposed to the environment, and non-specific bacteria are potentially able to colonize the gland reservoirs, especially in cases where the host fails to acquire its specific symbionts [28]. These bacteria, not belonging to the clade ‘S.