Spatial Ecology of the Human Tongue Dorsum Microbiome
Abstract
A fundamental question in microbial ecology is how microbes are spatially organized with respect to each other and their host. A test bed for examining this question is the tongue dorsum, which harbors a complex and important microbial community. Here, we use multiplexed fluorescence spectral imaging to investigate the organization of the tongue microbiome at micron to hundred-micron scales. We design oligonucleotide probes for taxa both abundant and prevalent, as determined by sequence analysis. Imaging reveals a highly structured spatial organization of microbial consortia, ranging in linear dimension from tens to hundreds of microns. The consortia appear to develop from a core of epithelial cells, with taxa clustering in domains suggestive of clonal expansion. Quantitative proximity analysis provides the basis for a model of tongue dorsum microbiome organization and dynamics. Our work illustrates how high-resolution analysis of micron-scale organization provides insights into physiological functions and microbiome-host interactions.
Additional Information
© 2020 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Received 13 August 2019, Revised 29 January 2020, Accepted 26 February 2020, Available online 24 March 2020. This work was supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant DE022586 (to G.G.B.). We thank Floyd Dewhirst for helpful discussions and a critical reading of the manuscript; Alex Valm for design of the Gra65 and TM7550 probes; Blair Rossetti for help with MATLAB spectral unmixing; and Jordan Briscoe, Andrew Kempchinsky, and Janina Schumann for technical assistance. Some of the imaging was performed in the Biological Imaging Facility of the California Institute of Technology, with the support of the Caltech Beckman Institute and the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. Author Contributions: Conceptualization, S.A.W., J.L.M.W., and G.G.B.; Investigation, S.A.W. and J.L.M.W.; Writing – Original Draft, S.A.W. and J.L.M.W.; Writing – Review & Editing, S.A.W., J.L.M.W., and G.G.B.; Visualization, S.A.W.; Supervision, J.L.M.W. and G.G.B.; Funding Acquisition, J.L.M.W. and G.G.B. The authors declare no competing interests.Attached Files
Published - 1-s2.0-S2211124720302710-main.pdf
Supplemental Material - 1-s2.0-S2211124720302710-mmc1.pdf
Supplemental Material - 1-s2.0-S2211124720302710-mmc2.xlsx
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Additional details
- PMCID
- PMC7179516
- Eprint ID
- 102577
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20200416-122351517
- DE022586
- NIH
- Caltech Beckman Institute
- Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation
- Created
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2020-04-16Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2022-02-15Created from EPrint's last_modified field