Exclusivity in physical spaces and nutrients is a prerequisite for survival of organisms, but a few species have been able to develop mutually beneficial strategies that allow them to co-habit. Here, we discovered a mutualistic mechanism between filamentous fungus, Aspergillus nidulans, and bacterium, Bacillus subtilis. The bacterial cells co-cultured with the fungus traveled along mycelia using their flagella and dispersed farther with the expansion of fungal colony, indicating that the fungal mycelia supply space for bacteria to migrate, disperse, and proliferate. Transcriptomic, genetic, molecular mass, and imaging analyses demonstrated that the bacteria reached the mycelial edge and supplied thiamine to the growing hyphae, which led to a promotion of hyphal growth. The thiamine transfer from bacteria to the thiamine non-auxotrophic fungus was directly demonstrated by stable isotope labeling. The simultaneous spatial and metabolic interactions demonstrated in this study reveal a mutualism that facilitates the communicating fungal and bacterial species to obtain an environmental niche and nutrient, respectively.
Physical spaces and nutrients are prerequisites to the survival of organisms while few interspecies mutual strategies are documented that satisfies them. Here we discovered a mutualistic mechanism between filamentous fungus and bacterium, Aspergillus nidulans and Bacillus subtilis. The bacterial cells co-cultured with the fungus traveled along mycelia depending on their flagella and dispersed farther with the expansion of fungal colony, indicating that the fungal mycelia supply space for bacteria to migrate, disperse and proliferate. Transcriptomic, genetic, molecular mass and imaging analyses demonstrated that the bacteria reach the mycelial edge and supply thiamine to the growing hyphae, resulting in a promotion of hyphal growth. The thiamine transfer from bacteria to the thiamine non-auxotrophic fungus is directly demonstrated by stable isotope labeling. The simultaneous spatial and metabolic interactions demonstrated in this study, reveal a mutualism that facilitates the communicating fungal and bacterial species to obtain environmental niche and nutrient respectively.
There are many case reports of elephant pathogenic bacteria and viruses that require quick and sensitive diagnostic techniques due to the impact they generate. Out of these the occurrence of TB in elephants, especially in captivity, leading to zoonotic risk for humans who live at the animal-human interface and the different strains of elephant endotheliotropic herpes virus (EEHV) that pose a threat to Asian elephants are of extreme importance. Hence, this study aims to evaluate the PCR based molecular techniques for the rapid and direct detection of TB in captive elephants by primers targeting gene hsp65 and EEHV 1 strain by primers targeting the terminase gene. Serologically positive captive Asian elephants at Elephant orphanage, Pinnawala were screened for TB by specific primer PCR assay for hsp65 gene of M.tuberculosis using direct DNA isolates from trunk wash samples. Among 21 trunk washes, only a single amplification was observed, with a size closer to 441bp. Sequencing of this resulted a 415bp fragment which was not responsible for TB. Although, there have been no recorded cases of EEHV in Sri Lanka, many healthy Asian elephants are asymptomatically infected by EEHV1 in the neighboring Indian region. Therefore, asymptomatic Asian elephants in captivity at ETH, Udawalawe were screened for 336bp partial EEHV1 terminase gene using direct DNA isolates from blood, eye swabs and buccal cavity swabs. All tested samples were negative for EEHV1. Since these elephants were closely monitored even after the study and none of them developed classical symptoms of either EEHV or TB, it is difficult to prove the fact that they were originally infected. The nonspecific amplification proves that it is possible to extract microbial DNA from elephant trunk washes.
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