Significance Wolbachia are utilized to control agricultural pests and reduce transmission of vector-borne human diseases such as dengue fever. Reproductive manipulation through cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) is essential these uses. A causal role in CI has been ascribed recently a linked pair genes, cidA cidB . However, some CI-inducing strains lack the cid operon, implicating additional mechanisms. The cinA–cinB operon paralogous cidA–cidB strong candidate for distinct system. We show...

Intracellular Wolbachia bacteria manipulate arthropod reproduction to promote their own inheritance. The most prevalent mechanism, cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), traces a deubiquitylase, CidB, and CidA. CidB has properties of toxin, while CidA binds rescues embryonic viability. is also toxic yeast where we identified both host effects high-copy suppressors toxicity. strongest suppressor was karyopherin-α, nuclear-import receptor; this required nuclear localization-signal binding. A...

Wolbachiae are obligate intracellular bacteria that infect arthropods and certain nematodes. Usually maternally inherited, they may provision nutrients to (mutualism) or alter sexual biology of (reproductive parasitism) their invertebrate hosts. We report the assembly closed genomes for two novel wolbachiae,

Recent metagenome-assembled genome (MAG) analyses have profoundly impacted Rickettsiology systematics. The discovery of basal lineages (novel families Mitibacteraceae and Athabascaceae) with predicted extracellular lifestyles exposed an evolutionary timepoint for the transition to host dependency, which seemingly occurred independent mitochondrial evolution. Notably, these rickettsiae carry Rickettsiales vir homolog (rvh) type IV secretion system purportedly use rvh kill congener microbes...

Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) are ubiquitous among soil bacteria and aid in many growth-related functions for plants. Recent biotechnological advancements involving PGPRs have led to a growing desire explore uncover combinatorial or dual use PGPRs. Our study aimed discover novel insecticidal phenotypes amongst PGPR libraries. We screened, through survivorship bioassays, 502 endophytic activity against Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies). Initial bioassay screens were followed...

CinB nucleases are Wolbachia proteins that induce cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) through tandem nuclease domains nuc1 and nuc2. CI is a form of reproductive parasitism (RP) whereby males conditionally sterilized. The system behaves as toxin-antidote (TA) where operon gene cinA encodes an antidote cinB toxin. Cin operons purportedly the cause gene-drive induced by wolbachiae infecting Drosophila simulans. An unanswered research question whether lateral transfer to bacteria outside would RP...

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is often used to detect microorganisms, pathogens, or both, including the reproductive parasite Wolbachia pipientis (Rickettsiales: Anaplasmataceae), in mosquitoes. Natural populations of Culex pipiens L. (Diptera: Culicidae) mosquitoes are infected with one more strains W. pipientis, and crosses between harboring different provide best-known examples cytoplasmic incompatibililty (CI). When we PCR monitor Buckeye strain pipiens, a Wolbachia-cured sister colony...

Abstract Ubiquitin mediated signaling contributes critically to host cell defenses during pathogen infection. Many pathogens manipulate the ubiquitin system evade these defenses. Here we characterize a likely effector protein bearing deubiquitylase (DUB) domain from obligate intracellular bacterium Orientia tsutsugamushi , causative agent of scrub typhus. The Ulp1-like DUB prefers substrates over ubiquitin-like proteins and efficiently cleaves polyubiquitin chains three or more ubiquitins....

Significance Wolbachia are maternally transmitted bacteria that infect most insects, making them the common endosymbionts. achieved this status by manipulating host reproduction. For example, many cause cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) kills uninfected embryos. In females, can rescue CI, promoting their spread to high frequencies in populations. CI strength varies nature from weak strong. Importantly, strong enables biocontrol strategies mosquito systems, which protect millions of...

ABSTRACT Recent metagenome assembled genome (MAG) analyses have profoundly impacted Rickettsiology systematics. Discovery of basal lineages (Mitibacteraceae and Athabascaceae) with predicted extracellular lifestyles reveals an evolutionary timepoint for the transition to host dependency, which occurred independent mitochondrial evolution. Notably, these rickettsiae carry Rickettsiales vir homolog ( rvh ) type IV secretion system (T4SS) purportedly use kill congener microbes rather than...

Abstract The genetic blueprint for the essential functions of life is encoded in DNA, which translated into proteins—the engines driving most our metabolic processes. Recent advancements genome sequencing have unveiled a vast diversity protein families, but compared with massive search space all possible amino acid sequences, set known functional families minimal. One could say nature has limited ”vocabulary.” A major question computational biologists, therefore, whether this vocabulary can...

Mosquitoes and other biting arthropods transmit diseases worldwide, causing over 700,000 deaths each year, costing about 3 billion USD annually for Aedes species alone. Insect vectored also pose a considerable threat to agricultural animals. While clothing could provide simple solution vector-borne diseases, modern textiles do not effectively block mosquito bites. Here we have designed three micro-resolution knitted structures, with five adjustable parameters that can These designs, which...

Cockroach management relies heavily on the use of conventional insecticides in urban settings, which no longer provide anticipated level control. Knowledge cockroach endosymbionts, like Wolbachia, might novel avenues for Therefore, we screened 16 species belonging to 3 families (Ectobiidae, Blattidae, and Blaberidae) presence Wolbachia. We mapped evolution Wolbachia-cockroach relationships based maximum likelihood phylogeny phylogenetic clustering a multi-loci sequence dataset (i.e., coxA,...

The genetic blueprint for the essential functions of life is encoded in DNA, which translated into proteins -- engines driving most our metabolic processes. Recent advancements genome sequencing have unveiled a vast diversity protein families, but compared to massive search space all possible amino acid sequences, set known functional families minimal. One could say nature has limited "vocabulary." major question computational biologists, therefore, whether this vocabulary can be expanded...

Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) simulate Darwinian evolution and adeptly mimic natural evolution. Most EA applications in biology encode high levels of abstraction top-down population ecology models. In contrast, our research merges protein alignment from bioinformatics into codon based EAs that molecular string the bottom up. We apply to reconcile a problem field Wolbachia induced cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI). is microbial endosymbiont lives inside insect cells. CI conditional sterility...

Abstract Wolbachiae are obligate intracellular bacteria that infect arthropods and certain nematodes. Usually maternally inherited, they may provision nutrients to (mutualism) or alter sexual biology of (reproductive parasitism) their invertebrate hosts. We report the assembly closed genomes for two novel wolbachiae, w CfeT CfeJ, found co-infecting cat fleas ( Ctenocephalides felis ) Elward Laboratory colony (Soquel, CA). is basal nearly all described Wolbachia supergroups, while CfeJ...