Diversity of biosynthetic gene clusters in gut bacteria of turtle ants

In insect-microbe nutritional symbioses the gut symbionts supplement the host diet with nutrients by producing amino acids and vitamins or by degrading lignin or polysaccharides macromolecules. In multipartite mutualisms composed of multiple symbionts from different taxonomical orders, it has been suggested that beside the genes involved in the nutritional symbiosis the symbionts maintain genes responsible for the production of metabolites putatively playing a role in the maintenance and interaction of the bacterial communities living in close proximity. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the diversity of biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) producing different non-primary metabolites in the genomes and metagenomes of the conserved gut symbionts associated with the herbivorous turtle ants (genus: Cephalotes). We studied 17 Cephalotes species collected across several geographical areas to reveal that (i) mining metagenomes and genomes show complementary results demonstrating the robus...