Microbial diversity in sterile medfly guts after a "LEK" probiotic consortium treatment

Among the strategies for restoring the commensal microbiome groups in various SIT manifestations of dysbiosis, the use of probiotics as food additives improves the sterile insect performance. Here, using high-throughput illumina sequencing of 16S rRNA gene, we investigated the effect of probiotic consortia administration to V8-GSS medfly larvae and/or adult stages across 20 rearing generations on sterile male bacterial microbiota structure and metabolic activity in response to the probiotic feeding life stage administration. The findings in this study will enrich the understanding of the diversity and dynamics of the medfly gut microbiota after probiotic feeding and will provide novel strategies to modulate microbial structure within medfly sterile males towards a personalized population.