Bacterial Community in the Skin Microbiome of Frogs in a Coldspot of Chytridiomycosis Infection

• Milind C. Mutnale ^[1] ; Gundlapally S. Reddy ^[1] ; Karthikeyan Vasudevan ^[1]
  1. [1] Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species, CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, Telangana, India
• Localización: Microbial ecology, ISSN-e 1432-184X, ISSN 0095-3628, Vol. 82, Nº. 2, 2021, págs. 554-558
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen

  • Chytridiomycosis is a fungal disease caused by the pathogens, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) and B. salamandrivorans (Bsal), which has caused declines in amphibian populations worldwide. Asia is considered as a coldspot of infection, since adult frogs are less susceptible to Bd-induced mortality or morbidity. Using the next-generation sequencing approach, we assessed the cutaneous bacterial community composition and presence of anti-Bd bacteria in six frog species from India using DNA isolated from skin swabs. All the six frog species sampled were tested using nested PCR and found Bd negative. We found a total of 551 OTUs on frog skin, of which the bacterial phyla such as Proteobacteria (56.15% average relative abundance) was dominated followed by Actinobacteria (21.98% average relative abundance) and Firmicutes (13.7% average relative abundance). The contribution of Proteobacteria in the anti-Bd community was highest and represented by 175 OTUs. Overall, the anti-Bd bacterial community dominated (51.7% anti-Bd OTUs) the skin microbiome of the frogs. The study highlights the putative role of frog skin microbiome in affording resistance to Bd infections in coldspots of infection.