Biology Department, University of Scranton, Scranton, PA, USA.
Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA.
Commun Biol. 2024 Jun 14;7(1):727. doi: 10.1038/s42003-024-06431-y.
Many insects and other animals carry microbial endosymbionts that influence their reproduction and fitness. These relationships only persist if endosymbionts are reliably transmitted from one host generation to the next. Wolbachia are maternally transmitted endosymbionts found in most insect species, but transmission rates can vary across environments. Maternal transmission of wMel Wolbachia depends on temperature in natural Drosophila melanogaster hosts and in transinfected Aedes aegypti, where wMel is used to block pathogens that cause human disease. In D. melanogaster, wMel transmission declines in the cold as Wolbachia become less abundant in host ovaries and at the posterior pole plasm (the site of germline formation) in mature oocytes. Here, we assess how temperature affects maternal transmission and underlying patterns of Wolbachia localization across 10 Wolbachia strains diverged up to 50 million years-including strains closely related to wMel-and their natural Drosophila hosts. Many Wolbachia maintain high transmission rates across temperatures, despite highly variable (and sometimes low) levels of Wolbachia in the ovaries and at the developing germline in late-stage oocytes. Identifying strains like closely related wMel-like Wolbachia with stable transmission across variable environmental conditions may improve the efficacy of Wolbachia-based biocontrol efforts as they expand into globally diverse environments.
许多昆虫和其他动物携带影响其繁殖和适应性的微生物内共生体。这些关系只有在内共生体能够可靠地从一代宿主传递到下一代宿主时才会持续存在。沃尔巴克氏体是一种在大多数昆虫物种中发现的母系传递的内共生体，但在不同环境中的传播率可能会有所不同。在自然的黑腹果蝇宿主和转感染的埃及伊蚊中，wMel 沃尔巴克氏体的母系传播取决于温度，wMel 被用于阻断导致人类疾病的病原体。在黑腹果蝇中，随着沃尔巴克氏体在宿主卵巢和成熟卵母细胞的后极质（生殖系形成的部位）中变得不那么丰富，wMel 的传播在低温下下降。在这里，我们评估了温度如何影响母系传播以及沃尔巴克氏体在 10 种沃尔巴克氏体菌株中的定位模式，这些菌株分化了多达 5000 万年，包括与 wMel 密切相关的菌株，以及它们的自然果蝇宿主。尽管在卵巢和晚期卵母细胞的发育生殖系中沃尔巴克氏体的水平高度可变（有时很低），但许多沃尔巴克氏体仍能在不同温度下保持高传播率。鉴定出像与 wMel 密切相关的沃尔巴克氏体这样在不同环境条件下具有稳定传播能力的菌株，可能会提高基于沃尔巴克氏体的生物控制努力的效果，因为它们扩展到全球多样化的环境中。
