Culturable forms of opportunistic bacteria were analyzed (i) from females’ antennal samples of different host species, and (ii) from European beewolf males’ antennae used as a reference for environmental contamination, because they do not contain antennal gland reservoirs. Based on their abundance, opportunistic bacteria isolated from both males’ and females’ antennae could be

separated into two groups: all Gammaproteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Actinobacteria from males and some from females were isolated in low CFU counts (Figure 5). These bacteria were considered casual environmental contamination, probably of the antennal outer surface. The second group included highly abundant bacteria (102-104 CFU/sample), which were only isolated from females of different species and geographic www.selleckchem.com/products/azd9291.html GS-9973 solubility dmso origin; this group encompassed exclusively filamentous Actinobacteria (genera Streptomyces, Amycolatopsis, and Nocardia) (Figure 5). It seems likely that in those samples, the original symbiont from the clade ‘S. philanthi’ was replaced with other Actinobacteria in the antennal gland reservoirs, as has also been observed occasionally with molecular methods [28]. All these

latter isolates were able to use ammonium as nitrogen source (data not shown). Figure 5 Phylogenetic tree of opportunistic bacteria isolated from different https://www.selleckchem.com/products/BEZ235.html beewolf samples. Low-abundance bacteria (first dilution) were isolated from (i) males’ antennae (blue boxes) and (ii) females’ antennae (green boxes); high-abundance bacteria (102-104 CFU/sample) isolated from females’ antennae are shown in red boxes. The tree was reconstructed based on an alignment of 725 bp of 16S rRNA genes using Neighbour-Joining within MEGA version 5. Numbers at nodes indicate bootstrap values greater

than 50%. Discussion In the present study, we report on the isolation of 22 wasp-associated ‘S. philanthi’ biovars in pure culture. Comparative physiological analyses provide insight into divergent metabolic capabilities in the monophyletic clade of symbiotic Streptomyces. Due to the difficulties in axenic cultivation of bacterial symbionts tightly associated with insect hosts, analyses of most symbiotic bacteria are confined to the in silico reconstruction of metabolic Orotidine 5′-phosphate decarboxylase pathways from genomic or transcriptomic data. However, experiments on pure bacterial cultures can deliver direct evidence for the physiological consequences of co-evolution with the host and also provide the opportunity to test hypotheses on the symbionts’ physiology by genetic manipulation of the bacteria. Nevertheless, cultivation-based analyses also have important limitations: Since the conditions used for in vitro cultivation likely differ from those in vivo, the obtained results may not be representative of the natural situation. Typically, bacteria of the genus Streptomyces possess large genomes (up to 11.