Social wasp intestines host the local phenotypic variability of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains

Abstract

Nowadays, the presence of Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been assessed in both wild and human-related environments. Social wasps have been shown to maintain and vector S. cerevisiae among different environments. The availability of strains isolated from wasp intestines represents a striking opportunity to assess whether the strains found in wasp intestines are characterized by peculiar traits. We analysed strains isolated from the intestines of social wasps and compared them with strains isolated from other sources, all collected in a restricted geographic area. We evaluated the production of volatile metabolites during grape must fermentation, the resistance to different stresses and the ability to exploit various carbon sources. Wasp strains, in addition to representing a wide range of S. cerevisiae genotypes, also represent large part of the phenotypes characterizing the sympatric set of yeast strains; their higher production of acetic acid and ethyl acetate could reflect improved ability to attract insects. Our findings suggest that the relationship between yeasts and wasps should be preserved, to safeguard not only the natural variance of this microorganism but also the interests of wine-makers, who could take advantage from the exploitation of their phenotypic variability. Copyright

Geographical and Cultivar Features Differentiate Grape Microbiota in Northern Italy and Spain Vineyards

“…Some of these bacteria (e.g., Wolbachia , Cardinium , Rickettsia , and Hamiltonella ) could belong to arthropods in vineyards ( Delort and Amato, 2017 ), thus supporting the hypothesis of a functional role played by local biodiversity in transferring microbial organisms to the grape ( Gilbert et al, 2014 ). A similar situation has been demonstrated for grape yeasts (and their strains) which were found to disperse and evolve using wasps and other hymenopterans as vectors ( Stefanini et al, 2012 ; Dapporto et al, 2016 ).…”

Population genomics reveals evolution and variation ofSaccharomyces cerevisiaein the human and insects gut

“…The comparison of human gut isolates with strains isolated from wasp intestines revealed further insights on this topic. Wasp intestines isolates were previously shown to represent the regional genetic and phenotypic variability of S. cerevisiae (Stefanini et al ., ; Dapporto et al ., ). In the current study, we report that some wasp intestine isolates cluster together with human gut isolates, indicating either that humans are exposed to (and colonized by) a limited portion of the regional S. cerevisiae strains or that only a few strains are able to persist/survive in the human intestine.…”

Yeast‐insect associations: It takes guts

“…Recently, S. paradoxus was shown to be unable to survive in social wasp intestines, unless they formed hybrids with S. cerevisiae (Stefanini et al, ) . However, the social wasp intestine does not seem to select for specific traits at the intra‐species level (Dapporto et al, ). In contrast, one of the few identified intracellular symbionts, C. legeri (tentatively placed in the class of Saccharomycetales on the basis of its morphology(Phaff, )), seems to live exclusively in association with the host insect.…”