Temperature effects on cellular host-microbe interactions explain continent-wide endosymbiont prevalence.

ABSTRACT: Endosymbioses influence host physiology, reproduction, and fitness, but these relationships require efficient microbe transmission between host generations to persist. Maternally transmitted Wolbachia are the most common known endosymbionts,¹ but their frequencies vary widely within and among host populations for unknown reasons.^2,3 Here, we integrate genomic, cellular, and phenotypic analyses with mathematical models to provide an unexpectedly simple explanation for global wMel Wolbachia prevalence in Drosophila melanogaster. Cooling temperatures decrease wMel cellular abundance at a key stage of host oogenesis, producing temperature-dependent variation in maternal transmission that plausibly explains latitudinal clines of wMel frequencies on mu

SUBMITTER: Hague MTJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8891084 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature