Corncob structures in dental plaque reveal microhabitat taxon specificity

The human mouth is a natural laboratory for studying how bacterial communities differ across habitats. Different bacteria colonize different surfaces in the mouth-teeth, tongue dorsum, and keratinized and non-keratinized epithelia-despite the short physical distance between these habitats and their...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Microbiome Vol. 10; no. 1; p. 145
Main Authors:	Morillo-Lopez, Viviana, Sjaarda, Alexandra, Islam, Imon, Borisy, Gary G, Mark Welch, Jessica L
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	England BioMed Central 05-09-2022 BMC
Subjects:	Bacteria Bacteria - genetics Binding sites Biofilms Biogeography Community structure Consortia Dental Plaque Filaments FISH Fluorescence in situ hybridization Habitats Humans Hybridization Imaging In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence - methods Microenvironments Microscopy Mouth Mouth - microbiology Oral microbiome Saliva Species Streptococcus Streptococcus infections Zea mays Hedgehog Microscopy Imaging Oral microbiome Fluorescence in situ hybridization Biogeography FISH Microbial ecology Corncob
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Summary:	The human mouth is a natural laboratory for studying how bacterial communities differ across habitats. Different bacteria colonize different surfaces in the mouth-teeth, tongue dorsum, and keratinized and non-keratinized epithelia-despite the short physical distance between these habitats and their connection through saliva. We sought to determine whether more tightly defined microhabitats might have more tightly defined sets of resident bacteria. A microhabitat may be characterized, for example, as the space adjacent to a particular species of bacterium. Corncob structures of dental plaque, consisting of coccoid bacteria bound to filaments of Corynebacterium cells, present an opportunity to analyze the community structure of one such well-defined microhabitat within a complex natural biofilm. Here, we investigate by fluorescence in situ hybridization and spectral imaging the composition of the cocci decorating the filaments. The range of taxa observed in corncobs was limited to a small subset of the taxa present in dental plaque. Among four major groups of dental plaque streptococci, two were the major constituents of corncobs, including one that was the most abundant Streptococcus species in corncobs despite being relatively rare in dental plaque overall. Images showed both Streptococcus types in corncobs in all individual donors, suggesting that the taxa have different ecological roles or that mechanisms exist for stabilizing the persistence of functionally redundant taxa in the population. Direct taxon-taxon interactions were observed not only between the Streptococcus cells and the central corncob filament but also between Streptococcus cells and the limited subset of other plaque bacteria detected in the corncobs, indicating species ensembles involving these taxa as well. The spatial organization we observed in corncobs suggests that each of the microbial participants can interact with multiple, albeit limited, potential partners, a feature that may encourage the long-term stability of the community. Additionally, our results suggest the general principle that a precisely defined microhabitat will be inhabited by a small and well-defined set of microbial taxa. Thus, our results are important for understanding the structure and organizing principles of natural biofilms and lay the groundwork for future work to modulate and control biofilms for human health. Video Abstract.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-3 content type line 23 ObjectType-Undefined-2
ISSN:	2049-2618 2049-2618
DOI:	10.1186/s40168-022-01323-x