Prophage WO genes recapitulate and enhance Wolbachia-induced cytoplasmic incompatibility.

ABSTRACT: The genus Wolbachia is an archetype of maternally inherited intracellular bacteria that infect the germline of numerous invertebrate species worldwide. They can selfishly alter arthropod sex ratios and reproductive strategies to increase the proportion of the infected matriline in the population. The most common reproductive manipulation is cytoplasmic incompatibility, which results in embryonic lethality in crosses between infected males and uninfected females. Females infected with the same Wolbachia strain rescue this lethality. Despite more than 40 years of research and relevance to symbiont-induced speciation, as well as control of arbovirus vectors and agricultural pests, the bacterial genes underlying cytoplasmic incompatibility remain unknown. Here we use comparative and transgenic

SUBMITTER: LePage DP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5358093 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature