Hirudo verbana gut microbiome Targeted Locus (Loci)

The complexity of the animal digestive tract, unculturable microbes and the lack of genetic tools for most culturable microbes make it challenging to explore the nature of theses microbial interactions within this niche. The medicinal leech, Hirudo verbana, has been shown to be a useful tool in overcoming these challenges, due to the simplicity of the microbiome and the availability of genetic tools for Aeromonas veronii. In this study, we utilize pyrosequencing to further explore the microbial composition of the leech digestive tract, confirming the dominance of two taxa, the Rikenella-like bacterium and A. veronii. The deep sequencing approach revealed the presence of additional members of the microbial community that suggests the presence of a moderately complex microbial community with a richness of 36 taxa. The presence of the newly identified Proteus inside the crop was confirmed using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH).