Scientific Reports (Apr 2021)

Characterization of bacterial communities associated with blood-fed and starved tropical bed bugs, Cimex hemipterus (F.) (Hemiptera): a high throughput metabarcoding analysis

  • Li Lim,
  • Abdul Hafiz Ab Majid

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-87946-w
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 12

Abstract

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Abstract With the development of new metagenomic techniques, the microbial community structure of common bed bugs, Cimex lectularius, is well-studied, while information regarding the constituents of the bacterial communities associated with tropical bed bugs, Cimex hemipterus, is lacking. In this study, the bacteria communities in the blood-fed and starved tropical bed bugs were analysed and characterized by amplifying the v3-v4 hypervariable region of the 16S rRNA gene region, followed by MiSeq Illumina sequencing. Across all samples, Proteobacteria made up more than 99% of the microbial community. An alpha-proteobacterium Wolbachia and gamma-proteobacterium, including Dickeya chrysanthemi and Pseudomonas, were the dominant OTUs at the genus level. Although the dominant OTUs of bacterial communities of blood-fed and starved bed bugs were the same, bacterial genera present in lower numbers were varied. The bacteria load in starved bed bugs was also higher than blood-fed bed bugs.