Abstract
The sea squirt Ciona intestinalis is a well-studied model organism in developmental biology, yet little is known about its associated bacterial community. In this study, a combination of 454 pyrosequencing of 16S ribosomal RNA genes, catalyzed reporter deposition-fluorescence in situ hybridization and bacterial culture were used to characterize the bacteria living inside and on the exterior coating, or tunic, of C. intestinalis adults. The 454 sequencing data set demonstrated that the tunic bacterial community structure is different from that of the surrounding seawater. The observed tunic bacterial consortium contained a shared community of <10 abundant bacterial phylotypes across three individuals. Culture experiments yielded four bacterial strains that were also dominant groups in the 454 sequencing data set, including novel representatives of the classes Alphaproteobacteria and Flavobacteria. The relatively simple bacterial community and availability of dominant community members in culture make C. intestinalis a promising system in which to investigate functional interactions between host-associated microbiota and the development of host innate immunity.
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Acknowledgements
Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Biological Sciences Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS-0919728), Fogarty International Center, National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Office of Dietary Supplements, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, Biological Sciences Directorate of the NSF, and the Office of Biological and Environmental Research of the US Department of Energy under Cooperative Agreement U01 TW00313 with the International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups. Leah C Blasiak was supported by the Selman A Waksman Endowed Scholarship in Microbial Diversity funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore foundation while a participant in the Marine Biological Laboratories Microbial Diversity Course in Woods Hole. We thank Sara Kleindienst, Charles Pepe-Ranney, and Elizabeth Wilbanks for valuable input, and the MBL for use of its LSCM facilities. This is IMET contribution no. 13–111 and UMCES contribution no. 4812.
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Blasiak, L., Zinder, S., Buckley, D. et al. Bacterial diversity associated with the tunic of the model chordate Ciona intestinalis. ISME J 8, 309–320 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2013.156
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2013.156
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