Phylogenomics of the Reproductive Parasite Wolbachia pipientis wMel: A Streamlined Genome Overrun by Mobile Genetic Elements

By Martin Wu, Ling V. Sun, J. Vamathevan, M. Riegler, R. Deboy, J. Brownlie, E. McGraw, William F. Martin, Christian Esser, Nahal Ahmadinejad and 20 more. PLoS Biology, 2004

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The complete sequence of the 1,267,782 bp genome of Wolbachia pipientis wMel, an obligate intracellular bacteria of Drosophila melanogaster, has been determined. Wolbachia, which are found in a variety of invertebrate species, are of great interest due to their diverse interactions with different hosts, which range from many forms of reproductive parasitism to mutualistic symbioses. Analysis of the wMel genome, in particular phylogenomic comparisons with other intracellular bacteria, has revealed many insights into the biology and evolution of wMel and Wolbachia in general. For example, the wMel genome is unique among sequenced obligate intracellular species in both being highly streamlined and containing very high levels of repetitive DNA and mobile DNA elements. This observation, coupled with multiple evolutionary reconstructions, suggests that natural selection is somewhat inefficient in wMel, most likely owing to the occurrence of repeated population bottlenecks. Genome analysis predicts many metabolic differences with the closely related Rickettsia species, including the presence of intact glycolysis and purine synthesis, which may compensate for an inability to obtain ATP directly from its host, as Rickettsia can. Other discoveries include the apparent inability of wMel to synthesize lipopolysaccharide and the presence of the most genes encoding proteins with ankyrin repeat domains of any prokaryotic genome yet sequenced. Despite the ability of wMel to infect the germline of its host, we find no evidence for either recent lateral gene transfer between wMel and D. melanogaster or older transfers between Wolbachia and any host. Evolutionary analysis further supports the hypothesis that mitochondria share a common ancestor with the α-Proteobacteria, but shows little support for the grouping of mitochondria with species in the order Rickettsiales. With the availability of the complete genomes of both species and excellent genetic tools for the host, the wMel–D. melanogaster symbiosis is now an ideal system for studying the biology and evolution of Wolbachia infections.

Subfields: Immunology, Insect Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cc23159875f50800cd8621ff3adb0960a1c43ada

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Citations in the corpus

The Wolbachia Genome of Brugia malayi: Endosymbiont Evolution within a Human Pathogenic Nematode (2005, background): “In contrast, wBm, wMel, and Wigglesworthia [103,108] have lost nearly all of these pathways but retain the pathways for the biosynthesis of nucleotides and some coenzymes (Table 3).”
Overview and relevance of Wolbachia bacteria in biocontrol research (2006, neutral): “1997), international conferences every second year, and genome sequencing projects (Wu et al. 2004; Foster et al. 2005), research on Wolbachia continues to accelerate.”
The Bacterial Symbiont Wolbachia Induces Resistance to RNA Viral Infections in Drosophila melanogaster (2008, methodology): “Genes encoding proteins with ankyrin repeats, involved in protein–protein interactions, are over-represented in the Wolbachia genome [46,58] and are good candidates for mediators of anti-viral resistance.”
Genomics of bacteria and archaea: the emerging dynamic view of the prokaryotic world (2008, background): “Well-characterized cases in point are Rickettsia (247,248), Wolbachia (249), pathogenic Mycobacteria (250,251) and some lactobacilli (252).”
Multilocus Sequence Typing System for the Endosymbiont Wolbachia pipientis (2006, background): “by on January 30, 2010 aem.asm.org Downloaded from nogaster ( 60 ), and wBm, a supergroup D strain from the nematode host Brugia malayi (9).”
Evidence in the Legionella pneumophila genome for exploitation of host cell functions and high genome plasticity (2004, background): “So far, the only prokaryotic genomes known to encode large families of ankyrin domain proteins are those of Coxiella burnetii and Wolbachia pipientis , which encode 13 and 23 members, respectivel”
Identifying bacterial genes and endosymbiont DNA with Glimmer (2007, background): “This similarity often breaks down near the 50 end of the transcript, which also tends to be the region where gene finders disagree on the precise position of the start codon.”
A Wolbachia symbiont in Aedes aegypti limits infection with dengue, Chikungunya, and Plasmodium. (2009, background): “, 2005) and that Wolbachia and related bacteria also lack the biosynthetic capability to synthesize cholesterol and need to obtain it from the host insect (Lin and Rikihisa, 2003; Wu et al., 2004).”
The Tripartite Associations between Bacteriophage, Wolbachia, and Arthropods (2006, neutral): “The full genome sequence of Wolbachia wMel revealed three prophage regions: a small pyocin-like element, wMel WO-A, and wMel WO-B [40].”