Microhabitats within venomous cone snails yield diverse actinobacteria 1

15 Actinomycetes can be symbionts in diverse organisms, including both plants and animals. 16 Some actinomycetes benefit their host by producing small molecule secondary metabolites; 17 the resulting symbioses are often developmentally complex. Actinomycetes associated with 18 three cone snails were studied. Cone snails are venomous tropical marine gastropods which 19 have been extensively examined because of their production of peptide-based neurological 20 toxins but for which no microbiological studies have been reported. A microhabitat approach 21 was used in which dissected tissue from each snail was treated as an individual sample in 22 order to explore bacteria in the tissues separately. Our results revealed a diverse, novel and 23 highly culturable cone snail-associated actinomycete community with some isolates 24 Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. doi:10.1128/AEM.01238-09 AEM Accepts, published online ahead of print on 11 September 2009 on Jne 2, 2017 by gest ht://aem .sm .rg/ D ow nladed fom