Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Endosymbiosis - Wolbachia
- Endosymbionts
- An organism that lives within the body or cells of another organism
- Obligate endosymbiont: cannot survive without the host
- Often endosymbiont is heritable - passed on by host to
progeny, with very infrequent lateral transfer
- Endosymbiont can have major influence on host biology
- Transmission
- Via egg
- Many reproductive parastism relationships
promote maintenance of infection
- Often can trace close endosymbiont/mitochondrial genotype relationship
- Consequence of maternal transmission
- It is clear lateral transfer to new hosts can occur
- Evidence for survival outside of host
- Categories
- Obligate mutualists (primary symbionts)
- Required for host development
- Restricted for host development
- Cannot invade naive hosts and dependent on host-based mechanisms for transmision
- 'Domesticated' by host
- Facultative mutualists
- Confer fitness benefit to host
- Heat
- Protection against natural enemies
- A myriad of metabolic advantages
- Reproductive manipulators (maternal transmission)
- Parasites spread by increasing host reproduction through
daughters at the expense of reproduction through sons
- Incompatabilities (infected vs uninfected)
- Feminisation of genetic males
- 'Son killing' which increases investment in daughters
- Hosts
- Wide range
- Free living amoeba
- Arthropods
- Nematodes
- Plants
- Often host specific endosymbionts
- Reflects ancient origins?
- Origins
- 'Domestication' of intracellular bacterium
- Evolution of mutualistic interaction into dependence
- Many endosymbionts have lost many functions - genome reduction
- Mitochondria and chloroplasts are thought to have evolved from endosymbionts
- Wolbachia
- Members of order Rickettsiales
- Very wide distribution among
insects and other arthropods
- 65% of insect species harbour Wolbachia
- Infect >10^6 insect species
- Wide range of striking host manipulations
- Many affect reproduction
- Wolbacha-host interactions
- Strict maternal inheritance via the egg
- Variety of means to induce productive distortions to increase the reproductive
success of infected females, thus enhancing their maternal transmission
- Evidence for direct fitness benefits to the host by affection nutrition of development
- Controversy surrounds the question whether Wolbachia drive evolution
through the creation of reproduction barriers and genetic divergence
- Recent evidence shows gene transfer to invertebrate hosts
- Manipulation of reproduction
- Feminisation
- Genetic males develop as females
- Probably several mechanisms, not clear
- Parthenogenesis
- Species with arrhenotokous development (males develop from unfertilised eggs)
- Infected females produce daughters from
unfertilised eggs (normally only from fertilised eggs)
- Cell cycle is affected by Wolbachia early in embryo development
- Male killing
- 'Lethal feminisation'
- e.g. genetic become female and die during development
- Cytoplasmic incompatibility
- Most common phenotype
- Wolbachia induced modification of spermatogensis
- Rescue of the modification in embryos infected by the same Wolbachia strain
- Asynchronous development of female and male pronuclei
- Gentics/genomics
- Generally, endosymbionts have small
genomes compared to free living relatives
- Once thought the small genomes of endosymbionts
represent the ancestor (primitive) state
- Large genomes of free living bacteria evolved by gene acquisition
- Now clear the endosymbionts have
undergone large scale gene loss
- Mutualism - host benefits
- Probably Wolbachia-host dependent
- Asobara tabida (wasp) - regulation of apoptosis
in nurse cells allows oocyte development
- Removal of Wolbachia causes higher levels of apoptosis of nurse cells
- Drosophila - Wolbachia protect against a range
of RNA viruses, interfere with proliferation?
- Nutritional mutualism - iron homeostasis,
protection from oxidative stress?
- Theraputic window?
- Wolbachia essential to survival of some hosts
- Target Wolbachia as a drug target to
remove harmful pathogens from body?
- Antibiotic treatments of filarial diseases
- Filariasis - disease caused by nematodes
of the superfamily Filarioidea
- Transmission by arthropods
- Lymphatic filariases - e.g. elephantiasis
- Subcutaneous - e.g. river blindness
- Serious common disease
- Resistance to broad spectrum of
antihelmintics is becoming more common
- Now appreciated clearance of Wolbachia
from nematodes can sterilise the worms
- Doxycycline shown as
effective combination therapy
- Endosymbionts as biological control agents?
- Most endosymbionts should theoretically be
evovevd to beneficially co-exist with their hosts,
but there are some well studies exceptions
- Some Wolbachia strains are unable to
synchronise their replication with their host cells,
resulting in significant life-span reductions
- Best studied example is wMelPop (popcorn)
which over-replicate and fill the brain of infected
flies leading to 50% reduction in life expectancy
- Major interest in using Wolbachia strains as a
tool to control mosquito-born diseases
- The transmission of mosquito-born pathogens (malaria and
dengue fever) is influenced by the age of the mosquito to
replicate within their host until they reach the salivary glands