Detection and characterization of Wolbachia infections in laboratory and natural populations of different species of tsetse flies (genus Glossina)

BMC Microbiology

Research

Kostas Bourtzis¹  George Tsiamis²  Vangelis Doudoumis²  Stelios Dalaperas²  Adly Abd-Alla³  Peter Takac⁴  Johnson Ouma⁵  Emre Aksoy⁶  Uzma Alam⁶  Serap Aksoy⁶  Corey Brelsfoard⁷  Florence Wamwiri⁸ 

[1] Department of Environmental and Natural Resources Management, University of Ioannina, 2 Seferi St, 30100, Agrinio, Greece;Biomedical Sciences Research Center Al. Fleming, 16672, Vari, Greece;Department of Environmental and Natural Resources Management, University of Western Greece, 2 Seferi St, 30100, Agrinio, Greece;Department of Environmental and Natural Resources Management, University of Ioannina, 2 Seferi St, 30100, Agrinio, Greece;Department of Environmental and Natural Resources Management, University of Western Greece, 2 Seferi St, 30100, Agrinio, Greece;Insect Pest Control Laboratory, Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, Vienna, Austria;Institute of Zoology, Section of Molecular and Applied Zoology, Slovak Academy of Science, Dubravska cesta 9, 845 06, Bratislava, Slovakia;Trypanosomiasis Research Centre, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, P.O. Box 362, 00902, Kikuyu, Kenya;Yale University School of Public Health, 60 College St., 811 LEPH, 06520, New Haven, CT, USA;Yale University School of Public Health, 60 College St., 811 LEPH, 06520, New Haven, CT, USA;Department of Entomology, University of Kentucky, S-225 Ag. Science Center North, 40546, Lexington, KY, USA;Yale University School of Public Health, 60 College St., 811 LEPH, 06520, New Haven, CT, USA;Trypanosomiasis Research Centre, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, P.O. Box 362, 00902, Kikuyu, Kenya;

关键词: Cytoplasmic Incompatibility;    Multi Locus Sequence Typing;    Horizontal Gene Transfer Event;    Wolbachia Infection;    Wolbachia Strain;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2180-12-S1-S3

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundWolbachia is a genus of endosymbiotic α-Proteobacteria infecting a wide range of arthropods and filarial nematodes. Wolbachia is able to induce reproductive abnormalities such as cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), thelytokous parthenogenesis, feminization and male killing, thus affecting biology, ecology and evolution of its hosts. The bacterial group has prompted research regarding its potential for the control of agricultural and medical disease vectors, including Glossina spp., which transmits African trypanosomes, the causative agents of sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in animals.ResultsIn the present study, we employed a Wolbachia specific 16S rRNA PCR assay to investigate the presence of Wolbachia in six different laboratory stocks as well as in natural populations of nine different Glossina species originating from 10 African countries. Wolbachia was prevalent in Glossina morsitans morsitans, G. morsitans centralis and G. austeni populations. It was also detected in G. brevipalpis, and, for the first time, in G. pallidipes and G. palpalis gambiensis. On the other hand, Wolbachia was not found in G. p. palpalis, G. fuscipes fuscipes and G. tachinoides. Wolbachia infections of different laboratory and natural populations of Glossina species were characterized using 16S rRNA, the wsp (Wolbachia Surface Protein) gene and MLST (Multi Locus Sequence Typing) gene markers. This analysis led to the detection of horizontal gene transfer events, in which Wobachia genes were inserted into the tsetse flies fly nuclear genome.ConclusionsWolbachia infections were detected in both laboratory and natural populations of several different Glossina species. The characterization of these Wolbachia strains promises to lead to a deeper insight in tsetse flies-Wolbachia interactions, which is essential for the development and use of Wolbachia-based biological control methods.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Doudoumis et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.