Abstract
The phage WO was characterized in Wolbachia, a strictly intracellular bacterium causing several reproductive alterations in its arthropod hosts. This study aimed to screen the presence of Wolbachia and phage WO in 15 gall wasp species from six provinces of southern China to investigate their diversity and prevalence patterns. A high incidence of Wolbachia infection was determined in the gall wasp species, with an infection rate of 86.7% (13/15). Moreover, seven species had double or multiple infections. All Wolbachia-infected gall wasp species were found to harbor phage WO. The gall wasp species infected with a single Wolbachia strain were found to harbor a single phage WO type. On the contrary, almost all species with double or multiple Wolbachia infections harbored a high level of phage WO diversity (ranging from three to 27 types). Six horizontal transfer events of phage WO in Wolbachia were found to be associated with gall wasps, which shared identical orf7 sequences among their respective accomplices. The transfer potentially took place through gall inducers and associated inquilines infected with or without Wolbachia. Furthermore, 10 putative recombination events were identified from Andricus hakonensis and Andricus sp2, which harbored multiple phage WO types, suggesting that intragenic recombination was the important evolutionary force, which effectively promoted the high level of phage WO diversity associated with gall wasps.
Highlights
Wolbachia are maternally inherited endosymbiotic bacteria belonging to the family Anaplasmataceae that infect arthropods and filarial nematodes (Werren, 1997; Stouthamer et al, 1999)
The present study demonstrated that 86.7% (13/15) gall wasp species were infected with Wolbachia, and all Wolbachia-infected gall wasps were found to harbor phage WO
From two populations of L. jinzhaiensis, a Wolbachia-free species, a 273-bp orf7-like non-coding pseudogene of phage WO was obtained. It might be considered as the vestige of prophage DNA remaining in the chromosomes of the host insect after a previous lateral gene transfer event, suggesting that L. jinzhaiensis might have been infected by Wolbachia carrying phage WO
Summary
Wolbachia are maternally inherited endosymbiotic bacteria belonging to the family Anaplasmataceae that infect arthropods and filarial nematodes (Werren, 1997; Stouthamer et al, 1999). Phage WO in Gall Wasps genome evolution (Hendrix et al, 1999; Bordenstein and Wernegreen, 2004). Masui et al (2000, 2001) characterized the phage WO, a λ phage-like temperate phage, from the Wolbachia strain wTai, infecting Teleogryllus taiwanemma They indicated that the phage WO could be either lysogenic and integrated into the Wolbachia chromosome, or lytic and free in the cytoplasm. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of the minor capsid gene orf showed that the phage WO infected about 90% of supergroups A and B of Wolbachia from various arthropod groups (Bordenstein and Wernegreen, 2004; Gavotte et al, 2007). Considering the wide distribution of Wolbachia, phage WO might be one of the most abundant phage lineages in arthropods
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