Data from: Vitamin supplementation by gut symbionts ensures metabolic homeostasis in an insect host

Despite the demonstrated functional importance of gut microbes, our understanding of how animals regulate their metabolism in response to beneficial symbionts remains limited. Here we elucidate the functional importance of the African cotton stainer’s (Dysdercus fasciatus) association with nutritionally beneficial gut microbes and subsequently examine the insect’s transcriptional response following symbiont elimination. In line with bioassays demonstrating the symbionts’ contribution towards host fitness through the supplementation of B vitamins, comparative transcriptomic analyses revealed a differential up-regulation of genes involved in import and processing of B vitamins in aposymbiotic bugs; an expression pattern that is indicative of vitamin deficiency in animals. Normal expression levels of these genes, however, can be restored by either artificial supplementation of B vitamins into the insect’s diet or re-infection with actinobacterial symbionts. These findings demonstrate that despite an extracellular localization, beneficial gut bacteria can be integral to the host’s metabolic homeostasis, reminiscent of bacteriome-localized intracellular mutualists.