Abstract
The common bed bug, Cimex lectularius harbors the endosymbiotic microorganism, Wolbachia (wCle), in a gonad-associated bacteriome as an obligate nutritional mutualist. The obligatory nature of this association suggests that all individuals in C. lectularius populations would be infected with wCle. However, studies spanning the past several decades have reported variation in both infection frequency and relative abundance of wCle in field-collected samples of bed bugs. Since the growth kinetics of wCle is poorly understood, the objective of this study was to quantify wCle over the life cycle of two strains of C. lectularius. Our results highlight that wCle is dynamic during bed bug development, changing relative to life stage, intermolt stage, and blood-fed status. These results suggest new hypotheses about the coordination of Wolbachia growth and regression with its host’s physiology and endocrine events. The observed quantitative modulation of wCle during the bed bug life cycle and during periods of starvation may explain the disparities in wCle infections reported in field-collected C. lectularius.
Highlights
Bed bugs are obligatory hematophagous insects with hemimetablous development from egg to adult through five nymphal stages, each of which requires a blood-meal to molt to the stage
The Wolbachia-free control bed bugs removed from antibiotics 90 d post-antibiotic treatment contained 532,480 ± 7,634 DNA copies of RPL18 and no detectable Wolbachia DNA (Fig. 1B), and no DNA was detected in the no-template controls (Fig. 1C)
One Harold Harlan (HH) bed bug and five Jersey City (JC) bed bugs were excluded from further analysis because they contained
Summary
Bed bugs are obligatory hematophagous insects with hemimetablous development from egg to adult through five nymphal stages (instars), each of which requires a blood-meal to molt to the stage. The titer of the primary endosymbiont Rhodococcus rhodnii fluctuates over time in the gut of Rhodnius prolixus, a blood-feeding insect closely related to bed bugs. We sought to understand whether the reported highly variable relative abundance of wCle in field-collected C. lectularius could be attributed to variation in bed bug developmental and blood-fed status. Our results demonstrate that the relative abundance of the wCle endosymbiont fluctuates dramatically over the life cycle of C. lectularius and in relation to its blood-fed status. These results may explain, at least in part, the high variation in infection frequency in field-collected bed bugs
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