Uncovering Wolbachia diversity upon artificial host transfer.

The common endosymbiotic Wolbachia bacteria influence arthropod hosts in multiple ways. They are mostly recognized for their manipulations of host reproduction, yet, more recent studies demonstrate that Wolbachia also impact host behavior, metabolic pathways and immunity. Besides their biological an...

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Main Authors: Daniela I Schneider, Markus Riegler, Wolfgang Arthofer, Hervé Merçot, Christian Stauffer, Wolfgang J Miller
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2013-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0082402&type=printable
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author Daniela I Schneider
Markus Riegler
Wolfgang Arthofer
Hervé Merçot
Christian Stauffer
Wolfgang J Miller
author_facet Daniela I Schneider
Markus Riegler
Wolfgang Arthofer
Hervé Merçot
Christian Stauffer
Wolfgang J Miller
author_sort Daniela I Schneider
collection DOAJ
description The common endosymbiotic Wolbachia bacteria influence arthropod hosts in multiple ways. They are mostly recognized for their manipulations of host reproduction, yet, more recent studies demonstrate that Wolbachia also impact host behavior, metabolic pathways and immunity. Besides their biological and evolutionary roles, Wolbachia are new potential biological control agents for pest and vector management. Importantly, Wolbachia-based control strategies require controlled symbiont transfer between host species and predictable outcomes of novel Wolbachia-host associations. Theoretically, this artificial horizontal transfer could inflict genetic changes within transferred Wolbachia populations. This could be facilitated through de novo mutations in the novel recipient host or changes of haplotype frequencies of polymorphic Wolbachia populations when transferred from donor to recipient hosts. Here we show that Wolbachia resident in the European cherry fruit fly, Rhagoletis cerasi, exhibit ancestral and cryptic sequence polymorphism in three symbiont genes, which are exposed upon microinjection into the new hosts Drosophila simulans and Ceratitis capitata. Our analyses of Wolbachia in microinjected D. simulans over 150 generations after microinjection uncovered infections with multiple Wolbachia strains in trans-infected lines that had previously been typed as single infections. This confirms the persistence of low-titer Wolbachia strains in microinjection experiments that had previously escaped standard detection techniques. Our study demonstrates that infections by multiple Wolbachia strains can shift in prevalence after artificial host transfer driven by either stochastic or selective processes. Trans-infection of Wolbachia can claim fitness costs in new hosts and we speculate that these costs may have driven the shifts of Wolbachia strains that we saw in our model system.
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spelling doaj-art-cdcdf97f3c754e958bfa4be5da63af852025-08-20T03:46:24ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032013-01-01812e8240210.1371/journal.pone.0082402Uncovering Wolbachia diversity upon artificial host transfer.Daniela I SchneiderMarkus RieglerWolfgang ArthoferHervé MerçotChristian StaufferWolfgang J MillerThe common endosymbiotic Wolbachia bacteria influence arthropod hosts in multiple ways. They are mostly recognized for their manipulations of host reproduction, yet, more recent studies demonstrate that Wolbachia also impact host behavior, metabolic pathways and immunity. Besides their biological and evolutionary roles, Wolbachia are new potential biological control agents for pest and vector management. Importantly, Wolbachia-based control strategies require controlled symbiont transfer between host species and predictable outcomes of novel Wolbachia-host associations. Theoretically, this artificial horizontal transfer could inflict genetic changes within transferred Wolbachia populations. This could be facilitated through de novo mutations in the novel recipient host or changes of haplotype frequencies of polymorphic Wolbachia populations when transferred from donor to recipient hosts. Here we show that Wolbachia resident in the European cherry fruit fly, Rhagoletis cerasi, exhibit ancestral and cryptic sequence polymorphism in three symbiont genes, which are exposed upon microinjection into the new hosts Drosophila simulans and Ceratitis capitata. Our analyses of Wolbachia in microinjected D. simulans over 150 generations after microinjection uncovered infections with multiple Wolbachia strains in trans-infected lines that had previously been typed as single infections. This confirms the persistence of low-titer Wolbachia strains in microinjection experiments that had previously escaped standard detection techniques. Our study demonstrates that infections by multiple Wolbachia strains can shift in prevalence after artificial host transfer driven by either stochastic or selective processes. Trans-infection of Wolbachia can claim fitness costs in new hosts and we speculate that these costs may have driven the shifts of Wolbachia strains that we saw in our model system.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0082402&type=printable
spellingShingle Daniela I Schneider
Markus Riegler
Wolfgang Arthofer
Hervé Merçot
Christian Stauffer
Wolfgang J Miller
Uncovering Wolbachia diversity upon artificial host transfer.
PLoS ONE
title Uncovering Wolbachia diversity upon artificial host transfer.
title_full Uncovering Wolbachia diversity upon artificial host transfer.
title_fullStr Uncovering Wolbachia diversity upon artificial host transfer.
title_full_unstemmed Uncovering Wolbachia diversity upon artificial host transfer.
title_short Uncovering Wolbachia diversity upon artificial host transfer.
title_sort uncovering wolbachia diversity upon artificial host transfer
url https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0082402&type=printable
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AT wolfgangarthofer uncoveringwolbachiadiversityuponartificialhosttransfer
AT hervemercot uncoveringwolbachiadiversityuponartificialhosttransfer
AT christianstauffer uncoveringwolbachiadiversityuponartificialhosttransfer
AT wolfgangjmiller uncoveringwolbachiadiversityuponartificialhosttransfer