Abstract
Bacteria interact with their environment including microbes and higher eukaryotes. The ability of bacteria and fungi to affect each other are defined by various chemical, physical and biological factors. During physical association, bacterial cells can directly attach and settle on the hyphae of various fungal species. Such colonization of mycelia was proposed to be dependent on biofilm formation by the bacteria, but the essentiality of the biofilm matrix was not represented before. Here, we demonstrate that secreted biofilm matrix components of the soil-dwelling bacterium, Bacillus subtilis are essential for the establishment of a dense bacterial population on the hyphae of the filamentous black mold fungus, Aspergillus niger and the basidiomycete mushroom, Agaricus bisporus. We further illustrate that these matrix components can be shared among various mutants highlighting the community shaping impact of biofilm formers on bacteria-fungi interactions.
Highlights
Biofilm development by a plethora of bacteria and fungi has been pragmatically studied separately in the laboratory
3.1 Colonization of the A. niger hyphae by B. subtilis depends on the global regulator, Spo0A Transcriptome analysis of attaching B. subtilis cells on A. niger mycelia has revealed that expression of genes related to single cell motility is reduced compared to non-attached cells [21] suggesting that the bacterial cells switch from planktonic to sessile state of growth
Bacterial cells of the spo0A strain showed reduced hyphal colonization compared to the wild type and only planktonic cells were observed around A. niger (Fig. 1 A,B)
Summary
Biofilm development by a plethora of bacteria and fungi has been pragmatically studied separately in the laboratory. Formation of biofilm in B. subtilis requires a complex matrix composed of exopolysaccharide (EPS), TasA amyloid fiber, and a surface localized hydrophobin, BslA [8,9,10,11,12,13] The former two matrix components are essential for the establishment of a floating biofilm on the air-medium interface (referred to as pellicle), the creation of complex vein-like structures on agar medium, or attachment to the root surface of plants [8,9,10,14,15]. We demonstrate that long-term attachment depends on the genes required for exopolysaccharide and amyloid fiber production, but neither the synthesis of hydrophobin nor the ability for single cell motility are required for the bacterial settlement on the fungal mycelium. We show that such a matrix-dependent colonization of fungal hyphae is restricted to A. niger, but required for biofilm formation on the mycelia of the basidiomycete, Agaricus bisporus
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