Microbial community profiles of the snake cloaca in the presence and absence of Chlamydiota

Abstract

Chlamydiota are obligate intracellular bacteria detected in snake cloacal microbiota, yet their biological significance remains poorly understood. Members range from recognised pathogens, such as Chlamydia serpentis, to potential environmental symbionts, raising questions about whether they represent transient contaminants, persistent colonisers, or subclinical infectious agents. Despite the cloaca serving as a primary site of chlamydial shedding in snakes, its interaction with the broader cloacal microbiota remains unexplored. Following pan-Chlamydiota PCR screening of 137 captive snakes across five collections, 52 samples (caenophidian snakes) (27 Chlamydiota-positive, 25 Chlamydiota-negative) were retained after V3-V4 16S rRNA sequencing and quality filtering. Presence of Chlamydiota was not associated with significant differences in alpha diversity or overall community composition, though it was related to greater within-community compositional heterogeneity. Differential abundance and multivariate analyses identified several enriched and depleted genera, with Lachnospiraceae and Copromonas consistently negatively associated with Chlamydiota across all three methods. Co-occurrence network analysis recovered more associations and a higher proportion of positive edges in the presence of Chlamydiota, with an expansion of anaerobic taxa. Inferred functional composition did not differ globally between groups; however, elastic net stability selection identified subtle pathway-specific differences, including enrichment of proteolytic and mycobacterial pathways in infected snakes. Our findings suggest subtle infection-associated community shifts that do not fully conform to established mammalian paradigms in which Chlamydia species behave either as gastrointestinal commensals or as cervicovaginal pathogens, highlighting the need for multi-omics approaches in larger cohorts of caenophidian and henophidian wild and captive snakes to better characterise the mechanistic basis and generalisability of these associations.