RESEARCH ARTICLE Characterized non-transient microbiota from stinkbug (Nezara viridula) midgut deactivates soybean chemical defenses Virginia Medina1, Pedro M. Sardoy1, Marcelo Soria2, Carlos A. Vay3, Gabriel O. Gutkind3,4, Jorge A. Zavala1,4* 1 Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de AgronomõÂa, CaÂtedra de BioquõÂmica -Instituto de Investigaciones en Biociencias AgrõÂcolas y Ambientales (INBA-CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2 Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de AgronomõÂa, CaÂtedra de MicrobiologõÂa -Instituto de Investigaciones en Biociencias AgrõÂcolas y Ambientales (INBA-CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina, 3 Universidad de Buenos Aires, a1111111111 Facultad de Farmacia y BioquõÂmica, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 4 Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones a1111111111 CientõÂficas y TeÂcnicas de Argentina, (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina a1111111111 a1111111111 *
[email protected] a1111111111 Abstract The Southern green stinkbug (N. viridula) feeds on developing soybean seeds in spite of OPEN ACCESS their strong defenses against herbivory, making this pest one of the most harmful to soy- Citation: Medina V, Sardoy PM, Soria M, Vay CA, bean crops. To test the hypothesis that midgut bacterial community allows stinkbugs to tol- Gutkind GO, Zavala JA (2018) Characterized non- erate chemical defenses of soybean developing seeds, we identified and characterized transient microbiota from stinkbug (Nezara viridula) midgut deactivates soybean chemical midgut microbiota of stinkbugs collected from soybean crops, different secondary plant defenses. PLoS ONE 13(7): e0200161. https://doi. hosts or insects at diapause on Eucalyptus trees. Our study demonstrated that while more org/10.1371/journal.pone.0200161 than 54% of N. viridula adults collected in the field had no detectable bacteria in the V1-V3 Editor: Erjun Ling, Institute of Plant Physiology and midgut ventricles, the guts of the rest of stinkbugs were colonized by non-transient micro- Ecology Shanghai Institutes for Biological biota (NTM) and transient microbiota not present in stinkbugs at diapause.