Microbiome scent has effect on fruit fly growth

Researchers in South Korea have discovered that gut bacteria can emit airborne scents that help the growth of fruit flies.

While it is known that the microbiome – the natural community of bacteria that lives in the body – is involved in promoting growth, it was still unclear how exactly this is achieved.

To shed light on this, a study led by Seoul National University focused on Lactiplantibacillus plantarum bacteria which are part of the gut microbiome of fruit flies and are needed for enhanced growth and development.

The team saw that this type of bacteria could still stimulate growth in fruit flies, even when none of the bacteria were present in the gut and were instead elsewhere in the body.

Further investigation showed that this growth mechanism was due to the bacteria emitting scents that contain airborne chemical signals, known as volatile somatotrophic factors (VSFs), which the team then observed activated pathways responsible for body growth.

It was also observed that fly larvae, which were completely free of microorganisms and that did not have much exposure to the VSFs, had growth defects, but making them inhale just one type of VSF could reverse these effects.

And although the VSFs are present in scent, the growth effects occurred independently of smell (because the VSFs were not only detected through the ‘nose’, but also in the gut).