Douglas Angela E
Department of Entomology, Cornell University, 5134 Comstock Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA; Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, 5134 Comstock Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
Curr Opin Insect Sci. 2014 Oct;4:23-28. doi: 10.1016/j.cois.2014.08.007. Epub 2014 Aug 17.
Genome research is transforming our understanding of nutrient exchange between insects and intracellular bacteria. A key characteristic of these bacteria is their small genome size and gene content. Their fastidious and inflexible nutritional requirements are met by multiple metabolites from the insect host cell. Although the bacteria have generally retained genes coding the synthesis of nutrients required by the insect, some apparently critical genes have been lost, and compensated for by shared metabolic pathways with the insect host or supplementary bacteria with complementary metabolic capabilities.
基因组研究正在改变我们对昆虫与细胞内细菌之间营养交换的理解。这些细菌的一个关键特征是其基因组规模小且基因含量有限。昆虫宿主细胞产生的多种代谢产物满足了它们苛刻且缺乏灵活性的营养需求。尽管这些细菌通常保留了编码昆虫所需营养物质合成的基因，但一些明显关键的基因已经丢失，并通过与昆虫宿主共享的代谢途径或具有互补代谢能力的辅助细菌得到了补偿。
