Microbiome_9

Introduction: Cockroaches (Phylum Arthropoda; Order Blattodea) are resilient insects and capable of surviving in extreme environments and conditions. Host-microbe interactions play a key role in host physiology and may be important in host adaptation to environmental changes. This study aimed to assess the microbial diversity and composition of cockroaches sampled from a very cold environment (kitchen freezer) and typical habitats (sewer and laboratory).Methodology: Cockroach samples were collected from three habitats (a kitchen freezer, a building sewer, and a laboratory). Sequencing of the PCR-amplified 16S V3-V4 hypervariable rRNA region was performed on an Illumina MiSeq platform. The microbial abundance and diversity were assessed.Results: We observed a significant decrease in microbial diversity and taxa species associated with cold temperatures among freezer cockroaches. Freezer cockroaches had unique microbial communities, different from the sewer and laboratory cockroach populations but shared a few taxa with the sewer cockroaches.Conclusions: Our results suggest that the environment may shape the microbial composition of organisms. Further, our study demonstrated the association of cold-resistant microbes with cockroaches collected from a kitchen freezer.