ArticlePeerJ2015
Can (13)C stable isotope analysis uncover essential amino acid provisioning by termite-associated gut microbes?
Article in PeerJ, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- Assessing gut microbial provisioning of essential amino acids to host in a mouse model with reconstituted gut microbiomes.Communications biology · 2025Article
- The Larval and Adult Female Gut Microbiomes of Two Burying Beetles (Nicrophorus spp.) With Distinct Parental Care Traits.Environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Enhanced gut microbiome supplementation of essential amino acids inFrontiers in insect science · 2024Article
- Molecular Characterisation of Faecal Bacterial Assemblages Among Four Species of Syntopic Odonates.Microbial ecology · 2023Article
- Mosquito sex and mycobiota contribute to fructose metabolism in the Asian tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus.Microbiome · 2022Article
- Insights into amino acid fractionation and incorporation by compound-specific carbon isotope analysis of three-spined sticklebacks.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Insect-host control of obligate, intracellular symbiont density.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Soil organic matter is essential for colony growth in subterranean termites.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- The effects of taxonomy, diet, and ecology on the microbiota of riverine macroinvertebrates.Ecology and evolution · 2020Article
- Compound-specific δOecologia · 2020Article
- Isotopic and genetic methods reveal the role of the gut microbiome in mammalian host essential amino acid metabolism.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Key physical wood properties in termite foraging decisions.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2018Article
- Genome of the Asian longhorned beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis), a globally significant invasive species, reveals key functional and evolutionary innovations at the beetle-plant interface.Genome biology · 2016Article
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3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Gut-associated microbes of insects are postulated to provide a variety of nutritional functions including provisioning essential amino acids (EAAs). Demonstrations of EAA provisioning in insect-gut microbial systems, nonetheless, are scant. In this study, we investigated whether the eastern subterranean termite Reticulitermes flavipes sourced EAAs from its gut-associated microbiota. δ (13)CEAA data from termite carcass, termite gut filtrate and dietary (wood) samples were determined following (13)C stable isotope analysis. Termite carcass samples (-27.0 ± 0.4‰, mean ± s.e.) were significantly different from termite gut filtrate samples (-27.53 ± 0.5‰), but not the wood diet (-26.0 ± 0.5‰) (F (2,64) = 6, P < 0.0052). δ (13)CEAA-offsets between termite samples and diet suggested possible non-dietary EAA input. Predictive modeling identified gut-associated bacteria and fungi, respectively as potential major and minor sources of EAAs in both termite carcass and gut filtrate samples, based on δ (13)CEAA data of four and three EAAs from representative bacteria, fungi and plant data. The wood diet, however, was classified as fungal rather than plant in origin by the model. This is attributed to fungal infestation of the wood diet in the termite colony. This lowers the confidence with which gut microbes (bacteria and fungi) can be attributed with being the source of EAA input to the termite host. Despite this limitation, this study provides tentative data in support of hypothesized EAA provisioning by gut microbes, and also a baseline/framework upon which further work can be carried out to definitively verify this function.
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