Multimodal dynamic response of the Buchnera aphidicola pLeu plasmid to variations in leucine demand of its host, the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum.

ABSTRACT: Aphids, important agricultural pests, can grow and reproduce thanks to their intimate symbiosis with the γ-proteobacterium Buchnera aphidicola that furnishes them with essential amino acids lacking in their phloem sap diet. To study how B. aphidicola, with its reduced genome containing very few transcriptional regulators, responds to variations in the metabolic requirements of its host, we concentrated on the leucine metabolic pathway. We show that leucine is a limiting factor for aphid growth and it displays a stimulatory feeding effect. Our metabolic analyses demonstrate that symbiotic aphids are able to respond to leucine starvation or excess by modulating the neosynthesis of this amino acid. At a molecular level, this response involves an early important transcriptional regulation (aft

SUBMITTER: Vinuelas J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3229713 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature