Division of functional roles for termite gut protists revealed by single-cell transcriptomes

The microbiome in the hindgut of wood-feeding termites comprises various species of bacteria, archaea, and protists. This gut community is indispensable for the termite, which thrives solely on recalcitrant and nitrogen-poor wood. However, the difficulty in culturing these microorganisms has hindered our understanding of the function of each species in the gut. Although protists predominate in the termite gut microbiome and play a major role in wood digestion, very few culture-independent studies have explored the contribution of each species to digestion. Here, we report single-cell transcriptomes of four protists species comprising the protist population in worldwide pest Coptotermes formosanus. Comparative transcriptomic analysis revealed that the expression patterns of the genes involved in wood digestion were different among species, reinforcing their division of roles in wood degradation. Transcriptomes, together with enzyme assays, also suggested that one of the protists, Cononym...

食木白蚁后肠中的微生物组（microbiome）包含多种细菌、古菌和原生生物。这个肠道群落对白蚁而言不可或缺，因为白蚁仅能依赖难降解且贫氮的木材生存。然而，这些微生物的培养难度阻碍了我们对肠道中每个物种功能的理解。尽管原生生物在白蚁肠道微生物组中占主导地位，并在木材消化中发挥主要作用，但极少有不依赖培养的研究探索过每个物种对消化的贡献。在此，我们报道了世界性害虫台湾乳白蚁（Coptotermes formosanus）肠道中原生生物群落所包含的四种原生生物的单细胞转录组（single-cell transcriptomes）。比较转录组分析（comparative transcriptomic analysis）显示，参与木材消化的基因表达模式在不同物种间存在差异，这强化了它们在木材降解中的角色分工。