Sinha Amit, Li Zhiru, Poole Catherine B, Ettwiller Laurence, Lima Nathália F, Ferreira Marcelo U, Fombad Fanny F, Wanji Samuel, Carlow Clotilde K S
New England Biolabs, Ipswich, Massachusetts, 01938, USA.
Department of Parasitology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Genome Biol Evol. 2023 May 8;15(5). doi: 10.1093/gbe/evad073.
The intracellular endosymbiotic proteobacteria Wolbachia have evolved across the phyla nematoda and arthropoda. In Wolbachia phylogeny, supergroup F is the only clade known so far with members from both arthropod and filarial nematode hosts and therefore can provide unique insights into their evolution and biology. In this study, 4 new supergroup F Wolbachia genomes have been assembled using a metagenomic assembly and binning approach, wMoz and wMpe from the human filarial parasites Mansonella ozzardi and Mansonella perstans, and wOcae and wMoviF from the blue mason bee Osmia caerulescens and the sheep ked Melophagus ovinus respectively. A comprehensive phylogenomic analysis revealed two distinct lineages of filarial Wolbachia in supergroup F, indicating multiple horizontal transfer events between arthropod and nematode hosts. The analysis also reveals that the evolution of Wolbachia-filaria symbioses is accompanied by a convergent pseudogenization and loss of the bacterioferritin gene, a phenomenon found to be shared by all filarial Wolbachia, even those outside supergroup F. These observations indicate that differences in heme metabolism might be a key feature distinguishing filarial and arthropod Wolbachia. The new genomes provide a valuable resource for further studies on symbiosis, evolution, and the discovery of new antibiotics to treat mansonellosis.
细胞内共生的变形菌沃尔巴克氏体已在线虫门和节肢动物门中进化。在沃尔巴克氏体系统发育中，超群F是目前已知的唯一一个包含节肢动物和丝虫线虫宿主成员的进化枝，因此可以为它们的进化和生物学提供独特的见解。在本研究中，使用宏基因组组装和分箱方法组装了4个新的超群F沃尔巴克氏体基因组，分别来自人类丝虫寄生虫奥氏曼森线虫和常现曼森线虫的wMoz和wMpe，以及分别来自蓝壁蜂蓝彩带蜂和绵羊蜱蝇的wOcae和wMoviF。全面的系统基因组分析揭示了超群F中丝虫沃尔巴克氏体的两个不同谱系，表明在节肢动物和线虫宿主之间发生了多次水平转移事件。分析还表明，沃尔巴克氏体与丝虫共生关系的进化伴随着细菌铁蛋白基因的趋同假基因化和丢失，这一现象在所有丝虫沃尔巴克氏体中都存在，甚至在超群F之外的那些也有。这些观察结果表明，血红素代谢的差异可能是区分丝虫和节肢动物沃尔巴克氏体的一个关键特征。这些新基因组为进一步研究共生、进化以及发现治疗曼氏丝虫病的新抗生素提供了宝贵资源。
