The Wolbachia Genome of Brugia malayi: Endosymbiont Evolution within a Human Pathogenic Nematode

By J. Foster, M. Ganatra, I. Kamal, J. Ware, Kira S. Makarova, Natalia N. Ivanova, A. Bhattacharyya, V. Kapatral, Susheel Kumar, J. Posfai and 16 more. PLoS Biology, 2005

630 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Complete genome DNA sequence and analysis is presented for Wolbachia, the obligate alpha-proteobacterial endosymbiont required for fertility and survival of the human filarial parasitic nematode Brugia malayi. Although, quantitatively, the genome is even more degraded than those of closely related Rickettsia species, Wolbachia has retained more intact metabolic pathways. The ability to provide riboflavin, flavin adenine dinucleotide, heme, and nucleotides is likely to be Wolbachia's principal contribution to the mutualistic relationship, whereas the host nematode likely supplies amino acids required for Wolbachia growth. Genome comparison of the Wolbachia endosymbiont of B. malayi (wBm) with the Wolbachia endosymbiont of Drosophila melanogaster (wMel) shows that they share similar metabolic trends, although their genomes show a high degree of genome shuffling. In contrast to wMel, wBm contains no prophage and has a reduced level of repeated DNA. Both Wolbachia have lost a considerable number of membrane biogenesis genes that apparently make them unable to synthesize lipid A, the usual component of proteobacterial membranes. However, differences in their peptidoglycan structures may reflect the mutualistic lifestyle of wBm in contrast to the parasitic lifestyle of wMel. The smaller genome size of wBm, relative to wMel, may reflect the loss of genes required for infecting host cells and avoiding host defense systems. Analysis of this first sequenced endosymbiont genome from a filarial nematode provides insight into endosymbiont evolution and additionally provides new potential targets for elimination of cutaneous and lymphatic human filarial disease.

Subfields: Infectious Diseases, Insect Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/111ece1ee081460564873f0483e3965874cfecfd

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Infectious Diseases

In Insect Science

Citations in the corpus

Wolbachia as a bacteriocyte-associated nutritional mutualist (2009, background): “In filarial nematodes, Wolbachia symbionts are regarded as mutualistic, although the exact benefits conferred by the bacteria have been elusive (29).”
Multilocus Sequence Typing System for the Endosymbiont Wolbachia pipientis (2006, background): “nogaster (60), and wBm, a supergroup D strain from the nematode host Brugia malayi (9).”
Human and Animal Dirofilariasis: the Emergence of a Zoonotic Mosaic (2012, background): “Studies of the antibiotic treatment of filaria-infected hosts and genome sequencing of Wolbachia have provided information about the nature of the interactions between bacteria and filariae and the molecules involved (140, 454).”
The Tripartite Associations between Bacteriophage, Wolbachia, and Arthropods (2006, neutral): “This host level selection could also explain its absence from mutualistic Wolbachia in filarial nematodes [62] in which host level selection would select against a lytic phage of a mutualistic Wolbachia that is required for host oogenesis and larval development.”
Overview and relevance of Wolbachia bacteria in biocontrol research (2006, positive): “…floatek@agr.gc.ca ISSN 0958-3157 print/ISSN 1360-0478 online # 2006 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/09583150600699606 Targeting Wolbachia with antibiotics, rather than their host nematodes with nematocides, promises an indirect method to cure the human patient (refs. cited in Foster et al. 2005).”