Abstract
BackgroundAnnual hibernation is an adaptation that helps many animals conserve energy during food shortage in winter. This natural cycle is also accompanied by a remodeling of the intestinal immune system, which is an aspect of host biology that is both influenced by, and can itself influence, the microbiota. In amphibians, the bacteria in the intestinal tract show a drop in bacterial counts. The proportion of pathogenic bacteria is greater in hibernating frogs than that found in nonhibernating frogs. This suggests that some intestinal gut microbes in amphibians can be maintained and may contribute to the functions in this closed ecosystem during hibernation. However, these results were derived from culture-based approaches that only covered a small portion of bacteria in the intestinal tract.MethodsIn this study, we use a more comprehensive analysis, including bacterial appearance and functional prediction, to reveal the global changes in gut microbiota during artificial hibernation via high-throughput sequencing technology.ResultsOur results suggest that artificial hibernation in the brown tree frog (Polypedates megacephalus) could reduce microbial diversity, and artificially hibernating frogs tend to harbor core operational taxonomic units that are rarely distributed among nonhibernating frogs. In addition, artificial hibernation increased significantly the relative abundance of the red-leg syndrome-related pathogenic genus Citrobacter. Furthermore, functional predictions via PICRUSt and Tax4Fun suggested that artificial hibernation has effects on metabolism, disease, signal transduction, bacterial infection, and primary immunodeficiency.ConclusionsWe infer that artificial hibernation may impose potential effects on primary immunodeficiency and increase the risk of bacterial infections in the brown tree frog.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-016-3318-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Annual hibernation is an adaptation that helps many animals conserve energy during food shortage in winter
The results suggest that hibernation in ground squirrels is accompanied by a remodeling of the intestinal immune system, which is an aspect of host biology that is both influenced by, and can itself influence, the microbiota [15]
Studies have shown that artificial hibernation alters gut microbiota and is able to cause pathogen-induced disease, such as septicemia, due to the rise of pathogenic bacteria triggered by chilling to close to 4 °C [17, 19]
Summary
Annual hibernation is an adaptation that helps many animals conserve energy during food shortage in winter This natural cycle is accompanied by a remodeling of the intestinal immune system, which is an aspect of host biology that is both influenced by, and can itself influence, the microbiota. The proportion of pathogenic bacteria is greater in hibernating frogs than that found in nonhibernating frogs This suggests that some intestinal gut microbes in amphibians can be maintained and may contribute to the functions in this closed ecosystem during hibernation. In communities in which consumption of fermented foods is high and antibiotics are not used, causes of allergy and asthma are low These studies suggest that changes in diet and associated changes in the gut microbiota are driving the increasing incidence of inflammatory disease. The results suggest that hibernation in ground squirrels is accompanied by a remodeling of the intestinal immune system, which is an aspect of host biology that is both influenced by, and can itself influence, the microbiota [15]
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