An engineered bacterial symbiont allows noninvasive biosensing of the honey bee gut environment

by Audam Chhun, Silvia Moriano-Gutierrez, Florian Zoppi, Am élie Cabirol, Philipp Engel, Yolanda Schaerli The honey bee is a powerful model system to probe host –gut microbiota interactions, and an important pollinator species for natural ecosystems and for agriculture. While bacterial biosensors can provide critical insight into the complex interplay occurring between a host and its associated microbiota, the lack of methods to noninvasively sample the g ut content, and the limited genetic tools to engineer symbionts, have so far hindered their development in honey bees. Here, we built a versatile molecular tool kit to genetically modify symbionts and reported for the first time in the honey bee a technique to sample their feces. We reprogrammed the native bee gut bacteriumSnodgrassella alvi as a biosensor for IPTG, with engineered cells that stably colonize the gut of honey bees and report exposure to the molecules in a dose-dependent manner through the expression of a fluorescent protein. We showed that fluorescence readout can be measured in the gut tissues or noninvasively in the feces. These tools and techniques will enable rapid building of engineered bacteria to answer fundamental questions in host –gut microbiota research.
Source: PLoS Biology: Archived Table of Contents - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: research