Effect of an anti-termite treatment on hindgut content metaproteome

Introduction
Termites are studied for many aspects of their biology. Historically known as pests in regard of human activities, these insects were more recently intensively investigated in the biofuel context. Symbiotic interactions occurring along the termite gut are of particular interest for both of these scopes. In this study we compared hindgut metaproteome of termites fed with an anti-termite treatment and an untreated diet.
Material & Methods
Termites were fed with Whatman paper for 84 hours. For untreated and treated diet respectively, paper was moisten with water and a sub lethal suspension of tannins associated with boric acid (BAT). Termite hindgut content proteome was extracted and digested. Peptides were analyzed through nano-LC-ESI-MS/MS using an Orbitrap analyzer. Proteins identification was realized by Mascot search in a homemade termite protein sequences database. Non redundant peptides with a score above identity threshold were blasted against NCBI nr database and results of this blast were analyzed using MeGAn 5.
Results
High resolution mass spectrometry allowed identification of around 1500 and 1000 non redundant peptides respectively for water and ABT treatment. Peptides were parsed following their taxonomic and functional attribution in order to highlight differences in hindgut metabolism such as cellulose digestion or detoxification process. Identification of ubiquitous proteins also revealed differences in symbiotic populations balance.
Conclusions
Despite the sub lethal concentration for the anti-termite treatment, significant perturbation of hindgut metabolism was observed. Tannins are slightly repulsive for termites compared to boric acid alone, and this has to be taken in account. These results will be completed with biochemical assays, microscopic observations and 2D-DIGE MALDI-TOF/TOF experiment, analyzing potentially synergistic effect between boric acid and tannins.