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MBE Advance Access originally published online on November 9, 2006
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2007 24(2):427-435; doi:10.1093/molbev/msl171
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Research Articles

A Survey of the Bacteriophage WO in the Endosymbiotic Bacteria Wolbachia

Laurent Gavotte*,1, Hélène Henri*, Richard Stouthamer{dagger}, Delphine Charif*, Sylvain Charlat{ddagger}, Michel Boulétreau* and Fabrice Vavre*

* Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive (UMR 5558), CNRS, IFR 41, University Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, France
{dagger} Department of Entomology, University of California, Riverside
{ddagger} Biology Department, University College London, London, United Kingdom

E-mail: gavotte{at}biomserv.univ-lyon1.fr.

Accepted for publication November 3, 2006.

Bacteriophages are common viruses infecting prokaryotes. In addition to their deadly effect, phages are also involved in several evolutionary processes of bacteria, such as coding functional proteins potentially beneficial to them, or favoring horizontal gene transfer through transduction. The particular lifestyle of obligatory intracellular bacteria usually protects them from phage infection. However, Wolbachia, an intracellular alpha-proteobacterium, infecting diverse arthropod and nematode species and best known for the reproductive alterations it induces, harbors a phage named WO, which has recently been proven to be lytic. Here, phage infection was checked in 31 Wolbachia strains, which induce 5 different effects in their hosts and infect 25 insect species and 3 nematodes. Only the Wolbachia infecting nematodes and Trichogramma were found devoid of phage infection. All the 25 detected phages were characterized by the DNA sequence of a minor capsid protein gene. Based on all data currently available, phylogenetic analyses show a lack of congruency between Wolbachia or insect and phage WO phylogenies, indicating numerous horizontal transfers of phage among the different Wolbachia strains. The absence of relation between phage phylogeny and the effects induced by Wolbachia suggests that WO is not directly involved in these effects. Implications on phage WO evolution are discussed.

Key Words: Wolbachia • phage WO • insect • phylogeny

1 Present address: Department of Entomology, S225 Agricultural Science Center Building—North Lexington.

Aoife McLysaght, Associate Editor


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