Chemical Gradients of Plant Substrates in an Atta texana Fungus Garden

Autor(es):Mostrar menos -

Caraballo-Rodriguez, Andres Mauricio ^[1] ; Puckett, Sara P. ^[2] ; Kyle, Kathleen E. ^[3] ; Petras, Daniel ^{[4, 1, 5]} ; da Silva, Ricardo ^[6] ; Nothias, Louis-Felix ^[1] ; Ernst, Madeleine ^[7] ; van der Hooft, Justin J. J. ^[8] ; Tripathi, Anupriya ^{[9, 1, 10]} ; Wang, Mingxun ^[1] ; Balunas, Marcy J. ^[2] ; Klassen, Jonathan L. ^[3] ; Dorrestein, Pieter C. ^[1]

Afiliação do(s) autor(es)

^[1] Univ Calif San Diego, Collaborat Mass Spectrometry Innovat Ctr, Skaggs Sch Pharm & Pharmaceut Sci, La Jolla, CA 92093 - USA

^[2] Univ Connecticut, Dept Pharmaceut Sci, Div Med Chem, Storrs, CT - USA

^[3] Univ Connecticut, Dept Mol & Cell Biol, Storrs, CT 06269 - USA

^[4] Univ Calif San Diego, Scripps Inst Oceanog, La Jolla, CA 92093 - USA

^[5] Univ Tubingen, Interfac Inst Microbiol & Med, CMFI Cluster Excellence, Tubingen - Germany

^[6] Univ Sao Paulo, Sch Pharmaceut Sci Ribeirao Preto, Ribeirao Preto, SP - Brazil

^[7] Statens Serum Inst, Danish Ctr Neonatal Screening, Dept Congenital Disorders, Sect Clin Mass Spectrometry, Copenhagen - Denmark

^[8] Wageningen Univ, Bioinformat Grp, Wageningen - Netherlands

^[9] Univ Calif San Diego, Div Biol Sci, La Jolla, CA 92093 - USA

^[10] Univ Calif San Diego, Dept Pediat, La Jolla, CA 92093 - USA

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: MSYSTEMS; v. 6, n. 4 AUG 2021.
• Citações Web of Science: 0

Resumo

Many ant species grow fungus gardens that predigest food as an essen-tial step of the ants' nutrient uptake. These symbiotic fungus gardens have long been studied and feature a gradient of increasing substrate degradation from top to bottom. To further facilitate the study of fungus gardens and enable the understand-ing of the predigestion process in more detail than currently known, we applied recent mass spectrometry-based approaches and generated a three-dimensional (3D) molecular map of an Atta texana fungus garden to reveal chemical modifications as plant substrates pass through it. The metabolomics approach presented in this study can be applied to study similar processes in natural environments to compare with lab-maintained ecosystems. IMPORTANCE The study of complex ecosystems requires an understanding of the chemical processes involving molecules from several sources. Some of the molecules present in fungus-growing ants' symbiotic system originate from plants. To facilitate the study of fungus gardens from a chemical perspective, we provide a molecular map of an Atta texana fungus garden to reveal chemical modifications as plant sub-strates pass through it. The metabolomics approach presented in this study can be applied to study similar processes in natural environments. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 17/18922-2 - Desenvolvimento de uma plataforma computacional modular extensível para análises de experimentos de metabolômica e metagenômica: inovando com a descoberta de novas atividades enzimáticas e produtos naturais de interesse farmacêutico derivados
• Beneficiário: Ricardo Roberto da Silva
• Modalidade de apoio: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Programa BIOTA - Jovens Pesquisadores
• Processo FAPESP: 19/05026-4 - Desenvolvimento de uma plataforma computacional modular extensível para análises de experimentos de metabolômica e metagenômica: Inovando com a descoberta de novas atividades enzimáticas e produtos naturais de interesse farmacêutico derivados
• Beneficiário: Ricardo Roberto da Silva
• Modalidade de apoio: Bolsas no Brasil - Programa BIOTA - Jovens Pesquisadores