ABSTRACT The European medicinal leech, Hirudo verbana, harbors simple microbial
communities in the digestive tract and bladder. The colonization history, infection frequency …

Leeches are found in terrestrial, aquatic, and marine habitats on all continents.
Sanguivorous leeches have been used in medicine for millennia. Modern scientific uses …

Culture-based studies of the microbial community within the gut of the medicinal leech have
typically been focused on various Aeromonas species, which were believed to be the sole …

The medicinal leech, Hirudo verbana, is one of the simplest naturally occurring models for
digestive-tract symbioses, where only two bacterial species, Aeromonas veronii bv. sobria (γ …

At least two organs of Hirudo medicinalis, the medicinal leech, are colonized by bacterial
symbionts, the crop of the digestive tract and the bladders of the excretory system. The …

The digestive tract of medicinal leeches from commercial suppliers has been investigated
previously and comprises of a relatively simple bacterial community. However, the …

Digestive-tract microbiota exert tremendous influence over host health. Host-symbiont model
systems are studied to investigate how symbioses are initiated and maintained, as well as to …

Microbial transmission through mucosal-mediated mechanisms is widespread throughout
the animal kingdom. One example of this occurs with Hirudo verbana, the medicinal leech …

The gut bacteria of the North American medicinal leech, Macrobdella decora, were
characterized. Biochemical tests and DNA sequences indicated that Aeromonas jandaei is …

Many monophagous animals have coevolutionary relationships with bacteria that provide
unavailable nutrients to the host. Frequently, these microbial partners are vertically inherited …