Chemical gradients of plant substrates in an atta texana fungus garden

Andrés Mauricio Caraballo-Rodríguez; Sara P. Puckett; Kathleen E. Kyle; Daniel Petras; Ricardo da Silva; Louis Félix Nothias; Madeleine Ernst; Justin J.J. van der Hooft; Anupriya Tripathi; Mingxun Wang; Marcy J. Balunas; Jonathan L. Klassen; Pieter C. Dorrestein

doi:10.1128/mSystems.00601-21

Chemical gradients of plant substrates in an atta texana fungus garden

Andrés Mauricio Caraballo-Rodríguez, Sara P. Puckett, Kathleen E. Kyle, Daniel Petras, Ricardo da Silva, Louis Félix Nothias, Madeleine Ernst, Justin J.J. van der Hooft, Anupriya Tripathi, Mingxun Wang, Marcy J. Balunas, Jonathan L. Klassen^*, Pieter C. Dorrestein^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Bioinformatics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Many ant species grow fungus gardens that predigest food as an essential 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 understanding 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.

Original language	English
Article number	e00601-21
Journal	mSystems
Volume	6
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1128/mSystems.00601-21
Publication status	Published - 3 Aug 2021

Keywords

Ant fungus garden
Atta texana
Chemical transformation
Fungal symbiont
Mass spectrometry
Metabolomics
Molecular cartography

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10.1128/mSystems.00601-21Licence: CC BY

https://edepot.wur.nl/553254Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Chemical gradients of plant substrates in an atta texana fungus garden",

abstract = "Many ant species grow fungus gardens that predigest food as an essential 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 understanding 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. ",

keywords = "Ant fungus garden, Atta texana, Chemical transformation, Fungal symbiont, Mass spectrometry, Metabolomics, Molecular cartography",

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year = "2021",

month = aug,

day = "3",

doi = "10.1128/mSystems.00601-21",

language = "English",

volume = "6",

journal = "mSystems",

issn = "2379-5077",

publisher = "American Society for Microbiology",

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TY - JOUR

T1 - Chemical gradients of plant substrates in an atta texana fungus garden

AU - Caraballo-Rodríguez, Andrés Mauricio

AU - Puckett, Sara P.

AU - Kyle, Kathleen E.

AU - Petras, Daniel

AU - da Silva, Ricardo

AU - Nothias, Louis Félix

AU - Ernst, Madeleine

AU - van der Hooft, Justin J.J.

AU - Tripathi, Anupriya

AU - Wang, Mingxun

AU - Balunas, Marcy J.

AU - Klassen, Jonathan L.

AU - Dorrestein, Pieter C.

PY - 2021/8/3

Y1 - 2021/8/3

N2 - Many ant species grow fungus gardens that predigest food as an essential 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 understanding 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.

AB - Many ant species grow fungus gardens that predigest food as an essential 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 understanding 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.

KW - Ant fungus garden

KW - Atta texana

KW - Chemical transformation

KW - Fungal symbiont

KW - Mass spectrometry

KW - Metabolomics

KW - Molecular cartography

U2 - 10.1128/mSystems.00601-21

DO - 10.1128/mSystems.00601-21

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85112341019

SN - 2379-5077

VL - 6

JO - mSystems

JF - mSystems

IS - 4

M1 - e00601-21

ER -

Chemical gradients of plant substrates in an atta texana fungus garden

Abstract

Keywords

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