Comparison of Gut Microbiota Between Golden and Brown Noble Scallop Chlamys nobilis and Its Association With Carotenoids

Hongxing Liu; Kar Soon Tan; Xinxu Zhang; Hongkuan Zhang; Dewei Cheng; Ye Ting; Shengkang Li; Hongyu Ma; Huaiping Zheng

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2020.00036

Comparison of Gut Microbiota Between Golden and Brown Noble Scallop Chlamys nobilis and Its Association With Carotenoids

Front Microbiol. 2020 Feb 7:11:36. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.00036. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Hongxing Liu^{1

2

3}, Kar Soon Tan^{1

2

3}, Xinxu Zhang⁴, Hongkuan Zhang^{1

2

3}, Dewei Cheng^{1

2

3}, Ye Ting^{1

2

3}, Shengkang Li^{1

2

3}, Hongyu Ma^{1

2

3}, Huaiping Zheng^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Marine Biotechnology of Guangdong Province, Institute of Marine Sciences, Shantou University, Shantou, China.
² Mariculture Research Center for Subtropical Shellfish & Algae of Guangdong Province, Shantou, China.
³ STU-UMT Joint Shellfish Research Laboratory, Shantou University, Shantou, China.
⁴ Institute for Advanced Study, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.

Abstract

Many marine bivalves are regarded as healthy foods due to their high carotenoid content. Only plants and microorganisms have natural carotenoids biosynthesis ability, hence, animals such as bivalves must obtain carotenoids from their diets. Due to the filter-feeding behavior of bivalves, they have high diversity of gut microbes. However, the relationship between gut microbes and carotenoids has not been explored in mollusks. In the present study, the interaction between gut microbes and carotenoids in two polymorphic noble scallop Chlamys nobilis, golden scallops (designated GG) and brown scallops (designated BW), were studied. The gut of GG and BW showed statistically different bacteria communities. Results from 16S rRNA gene sequencing and qPCR analysis revealed that the gut of GG had significantly higher relative abundance of carotenoids-producing bacteria Brevundimonas, compared with BW. Moreover, HPLC-MS analysis showed that isolate Brevundimonas could produce astaxanthin. The current findings are very useful as they could form the basis for future studies in determining the relationship between gut microbiota and carotenoids absorption in bivalves.

Keywords: Brevundimonas; Chlamys nobilis; bacterial abundance; carotenoids; gut microbe; scallop.