Title
Diminutive, degraded but dissimilar: Wolbachia genomes from filarial nematodes do not conform to a single paradigm
Date Issued
01 January 2020
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Lefoulon E.
Clark T.
Guerrero R.
Cañizales I.
Junker K.
Vallarino-Lhermitte N.
Makepeace B.L.
Darby A.C.
Foster J.M.
Martin C.
Slatko B.E.
Publisher(s)
Microbiology Society
Abstract
Wolbachia are alpha-proteobacteria symbionts infecting a large range of arthropod species and two different families of nema-todes. Interestingly, these endosymbionts are able to induce diverse phenotypes in their hosts: they are reproductive parasites within many arthropods, nutritional mutualists within some insects and obligate mutualists within their filarial nematode hosts. Defining Wolbachia ‘species’ is controversial and so they are commonly classified into 17 different phylogenetic line-ages, termed supergroups, named A–F, H–Q and S. However, available genomic data remain limited and not representative of the full Wolbachia diversity; indeed, of the 24 complete genomes and 55 draft genomes of Wolbachia available to date, 84% belong to supergroups A and B, exclusively composed of Wolbachia from arthropods. For the current study, we took advantage of a recently developed DNA-enrichment method to produce four complete genomes and two draft genomes of Wolbachia from filarial nematodes. Two complete genomes, wCtub and wDcau, are the smallest Wolbachia genomes sequenced to date (863988 bp and 863427 bp, respectively), as well as the first genomes representing supergroup J. These genomes confirm the validity of this supergroup, a controversial clade due to weaknesses of the multilocus sequence typing approach. We also produced the first draft Wolbachia genome from a supergroup F filarial nematode representative (wMhie), two genomes from supergroup D (wLsig and wLbra) and the complete genome of wDimm from supergroup C. Our new data confirm the paradigm of smaller Wolbachia genomes from filarial nematodes containing low levels of transposable elements and the absence of intact bacteriophage sequences, unlike many Wolbachia from arthropods, where both are more abundant. However, we observe differences among the Wolbachia genomes from filarial nematodes: no global co-evolutionary pattern, strong synteny between supergroup C and supergroup J Wolbachia, and more transposable elements observed in supergroup D Wolbachia compared to the other supergroups. Metabolic pathway analysis indicates several highly conserved pathways (haem and nucleotide bio-synthesis, for example) as opposed to more variable pathways, such as vitamin B biosynthesis, which might be specific to certain host–symbiont associations. Overall, there appears to be no single Wolbachia–filarial nematode pattern of co-evolution or symbiotic relationship.
Start page
1
End page
21
Volume
6
Issue
12
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Ecología
Parasitología
Subjects
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85098763802
PubMed ID
Source
Microbial Genomics
ISSN of the container
20575858
Sponsor(s)
This study was supported by internal funding from New England Biolabs, except for the first Illumina library for wDcau, which was produced at the University of Liverpool using funds supplied by the MNHN.
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus