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Antibiotic alters host’s gut microbiota, fertility, and antimicrobial peptide gene expression vis-à-vis ampicillin treatment on model organism Drosophila melanogaster

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Abstract

Antibiotics are commonly used to treat infectious diseases; however, persistence is often expressed by the pathogenic bacteria and their long-term relative effect on the host have been neglected. The present study investigated the impact of antibiotics in gut microbiota (GM) and metabolism of host. The effect of ampicillin antibiotics on GM of Drosophila melanogaster was analyzed through deep sequencing of 16S rRNA amplicon gene. The dominant phyla consisted of Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, Planctomycetes, Chloroflexi, Euryarchaeota, Acedobacteria, Verrucomicrobia, and Cyanobacteria. It was found that the composition of GM was significantly altered on administration of antibiotics. On antibiotic treatments, there were decline in relative abundance of Proteobacteria and Firmicutes, while there were increase in relative abundance of Chlorophyta and Bacteroidota. High abundance of 14 genera, viz., Wolbachia, Lactobacillus, Bacillus, Pseudomonas, Thiolamprovum, Pseudoalteromonas, Vibrio, Romboutsia, Staphylococcus, Alteromonas, Clostridium, Lysinibacillus, Litoricola, and Cellulophaga were significant (p ≤ 0.05) upon antibiotic treatment. Particularly, the abundance of Acetobacter was significantly (p ≤ 0.05) declined but increased for Wolbachia. Further, a significant (p ≤ 0.05) increase in Wolbachia endosymbiont of D. melanogaster, Wolbachia endosymbiont of Curculio okumai, and Wolbachia pipientis and a decrease in the Acinetobacter sp. were observed. We observed an increase in functional capacity for biosynthesis of certain nucleotides and the enzyme activities. Further, the decrease in antimicrobial peptide production in the treated group and potential effects on the host’s defense mechanisms were observed. This study helps shed light on an often-overlooked dimension, namely the persistence of antibiotics’ effects on the host.

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Data availability

The data supporting the conclusions of this study can be accessed through the NIH Sequence Read Archive under submission ID SUB148280, associated with BioProject ID PRJNA1078087, titled “Drosophila melanogaster Gut Microbiomes.”

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Funding

The authors express their gratitude to the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) for offering essential facilities to conduct this research. The first author acknowledges the financial support received through the DBT-RA post-doctoral program in Biotechnology and Life Science, including fellowship and contingency, under Grant ID-DBT-RA/2022/January NE/994.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Developmental and Biomedical Genetics Laboratory, Department of Developmental Biology and Genetics, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India, 560012

    Asem Sanjit Singh, Dhruv Pathak, Abass Toba Anifowoshe & Upendra Nongthomba

  2. ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute, P.O. Monirampore, Barrackpore, Kolkata, India, 700 120

    Manoharmayum Shaya Devi

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  1. Asem Sanjit Singh
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  2. Dhruv Pathak
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  3. Manoharmayum Shaya Devi
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  4. Abass Toba Anifowoshe
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Contributions

Asem Sanjit Singh: Conceptualisation, designed the experiment, carried out the experiments, analyzed the experiment results, and writing original draft. Dhruv Pathak: Carried out the experiment; Upendra Nongthomba: Conceptualisation, designed the experiments, commented on the manuscript; Manaharmayum Shaya Devi: Data analysis, assisted in manuscript preparation; Abass Toba Anifowoshe: Commented on the manuscript. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Asem Sanjit Singh or Upendra Nongthomba.

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Singh, A.S., Pathak, D., Devi, M.S. et al. Antibiotic alters host’s gut microbiota, fertility, and antimicrobial peptide gene expression vis-à-vis ampicillin treatment on model organism Drosophila melanogaster. Int Microbiol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10123-024-00507-9

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