Data from: 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, Cononympha leidyi, actively degrades chitin and assimilates
it into amino acids. We propose that C. leidyi contributes to nitrogen
recycling and inhibiting infection from entomopathogenic fungi through
chitin degradation. Two of the genes for chitin degradation were further
revealed to be acquired via lateral gene transfer (LGT) implying the
importance of LGT in the evolution of symbiosis. Our single-cell-based
approach successfully characterized the function of each protist in
termite hindgut and explained why the gut community includes multiple
species.