College of Life Sciences, Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
mBio. 2024 Oct 16;15(10):e0147324. doi: 10.1128/mbio.01473-24. Epub 2024 Aug 28.
is an obligate endosymbiont that is maternally inherited and widely distributed in arthropods and nematodes. It remains in the mature eggs of female hosts over generations through multiple strategies and manipulates the reproduction system of the host to enhance its spreading efficiency. However, the transmission of within the host's ovaries and its effects on ovarian cells during oogenesis, have not been extensively studied. We used single-cell RNA sequencing to comparatively analyze cell-typing and gene expression in ovaries infected and uninfected with . Our findings indicate that significantly affects the transcription of host genes involved in the extracellular matrix, cytoskeleton organization, and cytomembrane mobility in multiple cell types, which may make host ovarian cells more conducive for the transmission of from extracellular to intracellular. Moreover, the genes and , which are related to the synthesis of ribonucleoprotein complexes, are specifically upregulated in early germline cells of ovaries infected with , revealing that can increase the possibility of its localization to the host oocytes by enhancing the binding with host ribonucleoprotein-complex processing bodies (P-bodies). All these findings provide novel insights into the maternal transmission of between host ovarian cells.IMPORTANCE, an obligate endosymbiont in arthropods, can manipulate the reproduction system of the host to enhance its maternal transmission and reside in the host's eggs for generations. Herein, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing of ovaries from and observed the effects of (strain Mel) infection on different cell types to discuss the potential mechanism associated with the transmission and retention of within the ovaries of female hosts. It was found that the transcriptions of multiple genes in the ovary samples infected with are significantly altered, which possibly favors the maternal transmission of . Meanwhile, we also discovered that may flexibly regulate the expression level of specific host genes according to their needs rather than rigidly changing the expression level in one direction to achieve a more suitable living environment in the host's ovarian cells. Our findings contribute to a further understanding of the maternal transmission and possible universal effects of within the host.
是一种专性内共生体，广泛分布于节肢动物和线虫中，通过母系遗传。它通过多种策略在雌性宿主的成熟卵子中代代相传，并操纵宿主的生殖系统以提高其传播效率。然而，在宿主的卵巢中 的传播及其对卵母细胞发生过程中卵巢细胞的影响尚未得到广泛研究。我们使用单细胞 RNA 测序比较分析了感染和未感染 的 卵巢中的细胞分型和基因表达。我们的研究结果表明， 显著影响了宿主基因的转录，这些基因参与细胞外基质、细胞骨架组织和细胞质膜流动性等多种细胞类型，这可能使宿主卵巢细胞更有利于 从细胞外传播到细胞内。此外，与核糖核蛋白复合物合成相关的基因 和 ，在感染 的早期生殖细胞中特异性地上调，表明 通过增强与宿主核糖核蛋白复合物处理体 (P 体) 的结合，增加其定位于宿主卵母细胞的可能性。所有这些发现为宿主卵巢细胞之间 的母系传播提供了新的见解。
重要的是， 是节肢动物中的一种专性内共生体，可以操纵宿主的生殖系统来增强其母系传播，并在宿主的卵子中存在数代。在此，我们对 和 的卵巢进行了单细胞 RNA 测序，并观察了 感染对不同细胞类型的影响，以讨论与雌性宿主卵巢内 的传播和保留相关的潜在机制。研究发现，感染 的卵巢样本中的多个基因的转录明显改变，这可能有利于 的母系传播。同时，我们还发现 可能根据自身需要灵活调节特定宿主基因的表达水平，而不是僵化地朝着一个方向改变表达水平，以在宿主的卵巢细胞中达到更适宜的生存环境。我们的研究结果有助于进一步了解 的母系传播和在宿主内的可能普遍影响。
