Bacteriocyte plasticity in pea aphids facing amino acid stress or starvation during development.

ABSTRACT: An important contributing factor to the evolutionary success of insects is nutritional association with microbial symbionts, which provide the host insects with nutrients lacking in their unbalanced diets. These symbionts are often compartmentalized in specialized cells of the host, the bacteriocytes. Even though bacteriocytes were first described more than a century ago, few studies have explored their dynamics throughout the insect life cycle and in response to environmental stressors. Here, we use the Buchnera aphidicola/pea aphid symbiotic system to study how bacteriocytes are regulated in response to nutritional stress throughout aphid development. Using artificial diets, we analyzed the effects of depletion or excess of phenylalanine or leucine, two amino acids essential for a

SUBMITTER: Ribeiro Lopes M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9685537 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature