Animal digestive tracts house an array of microorganisms that play a beneficial role in aiding
digestion. Studying digestive-tract microbiota poses many challenges including: the vast …

Most animal digestive tracts are colonized by complex microbial communities making it
difficult to study the molecular interactions underlying the symbiosis. Due to its simple gut …

There are trillions of microbes found throughout the human body and they exceed the
number of eukaryotic cells by 10-fold. Metagenomic studies have revealed that the majority …

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

The medicinal leech is a developing experimental model of gut symbioses. Aeromonas
veronii and Mucinivorans hirudinis are core members of the gut microbial community in …

This study investigates the microbial diversity and enzymatic potential within the gut of
leeches, specifically focusing on the isolation and characterization of microorganisms and …

Gastrointestinal microbiomes play important roles in the health and nutrition of animals and
humans. The medicinal leech, Hirudo verbana, serves as a powerful model for the study of …

Strictly blood-feeding leeches and their limited microbiota provide natural and powerful
model systems to examine symbiosis. Blood is devoid of essential nutrients and it is thought …

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

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 …