Wolbachia: Can we save lives with a great pandemic?

Lepage, D.; Bordenstein, Seth R.

doi:10.1016/j.pt.2013.06.003

Cited by 89 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 110 publications

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“…Prominent effects of Wolbachia infection in arthropods include reproductive manipulations, such as feminization of genetic males, parthenogenetic induction, killing of male progeny from infected females, and cytoplasmic incompatibility (Werren, Baldo, & Clark, 2008). Generally, these phenotypes result in an increased frequency of infected females in host populations and thus promote the maternal transmission of Wolbachia through generations (LePage & Bordenstein, 2013). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting the phylogeny ofWolbachiain Collembola

Chen

et al. 2017

Ecology and Evolution

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The endosymbiont Wolbachia has been detected in a few parthenogenetic collembolans sampled in Europe and America, including three species of Poduromorpha, two species of Entomobryomorpha, and two species of Neelipleona. Based on 16S rRNA and ftsZ gene sequences, most of the Wolbachia infecting parthenogenetic collembolans were characterized as members of supergroup E and showed concordant phylogeny with their hosts. However, the two neelipleonan symbionts form another unique group, indicating that Wolbachia has infected parthenogenetic collembolans multiple times. In this study, five parthenogenetic collembolan species were identified as hosts of Wolbachia, and four new Wolbachia strains were reported for four collembolan species sampled in China, respectively, including a neelipleonan strain from Megalothorax incertus (wMinc). Our results demonstrated that the Wolbachia multilocus sequence typing (MLST) system is superior to the 16S rRNA + ftsZ approach for phylogenetic analyses of collembolan Wolbachia. The MLST system assigned these Wolbachia of parthenogenetic collembolans to supergroup E as a unique clade, which included wMinc, supporting the monophyletic origin of Wolbachia in parthenogenetic collembolan species. Moreover, our data suggested supergroup E as one of the most divergent lineages in Wolbachia and revealed the discrepancy between the phylogenies of Wolbachia from parthenogenetic collembolans and their hosts, which may result from the high level of genetic divergence between collembolan Wolbachia, in association with the geographic differentiation of their hosts, or the possible horizontal transmission of Wolbachia between different collembolan species.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting the phylogeny ofWolbachiain Collembola

Chen

et al. 2017

Ecology and Evolution

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“…Several potential strategies exist for the use of Wolbachia in arthropod based disease control [12,99]. These can be divided into two broad categories: Wolbachia population replacements or population reduction.…”

Section: Wolbachia Control Of Human Viral Protozoan and Filarial Dismentioning

confidence: 99%

Wolbachia endosymbionts and human disease control

Slatko

Luck

Dobson

et al. 2014

Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology

109

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Most human filarial nematode parasites and arthropods are hosts for a bacterial endosymbiont, Wolbachia. In filaria, Wolbachia are required for normal development, fertility and survival, whereas in arthropods, they are largely parasitic and can influence development and reproduction, but are generally not required for host survival. Due to their obligate nature in filarial parasites, Wolbachia have been a target for drug discovery initiatives using several approaches including diversity and focused library screening and genomic sequence analysis. In vitro and in vivo anti-Wolbachia antibiotic treatments have been shown to have adulticidal activity, a long sought goal of filarial parasite drug discovery. In mosquitoes, it has been shown that the presence of Wolbachia can inhibit the transmission of certain viruses, such as Dengue, Chikungunya, Yellow Fever, West Nile, as well as the infectivity of the malaria-causing protozoan, Plasmodium and filarial nematodes. Furthermore, Wolbachia can cause a form of conditional sterility that can be used to suppress populations of mosquitoes and additional medically important insects. Thus Wolbachia, a pandemic endosymbiont offers great potential for elimination of a wide-variety of devastating human diseases.

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“…The second is the endosymbiont Wolbachia and the filarial worms. These are studied for their role in human diseases [6] and Wolbachia, more generally, for its role in behavior and gender modification of hosts [7] . The third is the marine nematodes with chemoautotrophic or methanotrophic bacteria, which are studied for their unique associations enabling them to take advantage of the different metabolic pathways available to their symbionts [8,9,10] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%