fmicb-11-577268 November 29, 2020 Time: 19:34 # 1 ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 03 December 2020 doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.577268 Infection of Ophiocordyceps sinensis Fungus Causes Dramatic Changes in the Microbiota of Its Thitarodes Host Hua Wu1,2, Zhong-Chen Rao2, Li Cao2, Patrick De Clercq1* and Ri-Chou Han2* 1 Department of Plants and Crops, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, 2 Guangdong Key Laboratory of Animal Conservation and Resource Utilization, Guangdong Public Laboratory of Wild Animal Conservation and Utilization, Institute of Zoology, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China The Chinese cordyceps is a unique and valuable parasitic complex of Thitarodes/Hepialus ghost moths and the Ophiocordyceps sinensis fungus for Edited by: medicine and health foods from the Tibetan Plateau. During artificial cultivation of George Tsiamis, Chinese cordyceps, the induction of blastospores into hyphae is a prerequisite for University of Patras, Greece mummification of the infected Thitarodes larvae. To explore the microbial involvement in Reviewed by: Caihong Dong, the induction of mycelia-blastospore transition, the microbiota of the hemolymph and Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), gut from Thitarodes xiaojinensis larvae with or without injected O. sinensis blastospores China Xin Zhong, were investigated by culture-dependent and -independent methods. Twenty-five Sun Yat-sen University, China culturable bacterial species and 14 fungal species, together with 537 bacterial Xingzhong Liu, operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and 218 fungal OTUs, were identified from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China hemolymph and gut of samples from five stages including living larvae without injected *Correspondence: Patrick De Clercq fungi (A) or with high blastospore load (B), mummifying larvae without mycelia coating
[email protected] (C), freshly mummifying larvae coated with mycelia (D), and completely mummified Ri-Chou Han
[email protected] larvae with mycelia (E).