Post # 17
PROBIOTICS
AND PARASITES
Donald
A. Windsor
Probiotic
bacterial coatings on seeds enable plants to endure stresses, such as
drought, and produce better crop yields. Indigo Agriculture is the
company that is developing these coatings (1).
Could
parasites, especially those that enter hosts’ bodies, naturally
carry along their own probiotic bacteria? Probiotics might be the
parasites’ way of preparing their hosts for enduring the stresses
of their burden. Some parasites may even be able to be probiotics
themselves. I have often wondered if parasites actually help their
hosts bear the afflictions they cause.
In
fact, a parasite has already been reported as being a probiotic. The
haemoflagellate, Leishmania mexicana, protects its
phlebotomine sand fly vector, Lutzomyia longipalpis, from the
pathogenic bacterium, Serratia marcescens (2).
Could
probiotics partially explain why some parasite species have
intermediate hosts? Perhaps larval stages pickup probiotic bacteria
from their intermediate hosts and carry them to their definitive
hosts.
Probiotics
may even explain host specificity and could offer a way to conserve
parasites by providing new hosts.
Other
microbes besides bacteria, such as fungi and even viruses, could also
be probiotic.
Probiotics
might also be useful in the therapy of pathogenic parasites. A
probiotic is being tested as a treatment of white-nose syndrome in
bats, an often fatal disease caused by a fungus (3).
I
suspect that there is a lot more to the involvements of probiotics in
ecosystems. I am now investigating.
References
cited:
1.
Anon. Less pesticide, more bacteria (That’s a good thing).
Bloomberg Bussinessweek 2018 April 23; (4566): 25-26.
2.
Sant’Anna, Mauricio R.V. ; Diaz-Albiter, Hector ; Aguiar-Martins,
Kelsilandia ; Al Salem, Waleed S. ; Cavalcante, Reginaldo R. ;
Dillon, Viv M. ; Bates, Paul A. ; Genta, Fernando A. ; Dillon Rod J.
Colonisation resistance in the sand fly gut: Leishmania
protects Lutzoyia longipalpis from bacterial infection.
Parasites & Vectors 2014 July 23; 7: 329-338.
3.
Oosthoek, Sharon. Bats to the wall. New Scientist 2018 April
21; 238(3174): 42-43.
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