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MBE Advance Access originally published online on September 9, 2008
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2008 25(11):2493-2498; doi:10.1093/molbev/msn199
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© 2008 The Authors
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Research Articles

Nonrandom Wolbachia Infection Status of Drosophila melanogaster Strains with Different mtDNA Haplotypes

Maria D. S. Nunes, Viola Nolte and Christian Schlötterer

Institut für Populationsgenetik, Veterinärmedizinische Universität Wien, Veterinärplatz 1, Vienna, Austria

E-mail: christian.schloetterer{at}vu-wien.ac.at.

Accepted for publication August 29, 2008.

Wolbachia are maternally inherited bacteria, which typically spread in the host population by inducing cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI). In Drosophila melanogaster, Wolbachia is quite common but CI is variable, with most of the studies reporting low levels of CI. Surveying mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation and infection status in a worldwide D. melanogaster collection, we found that the Wolbachia infection was not randomly distributed among flies with different mtDNA haplotypes. This preferential infection of some mtDNA haplotypes could be caused by a recent spread of mtDNA haplotypes associated with the infection. The comparison of contemporary D. melanogaster samples with lines collected more than 50 years ago shows that indeed one haplotype with a high incidence of Wolbachia infection has increased in frequency. Consistent with this observation, we found that the acquisition of a Wolbachia infection in a population from Crete was accompanied with an almost complete mtDNA replacement, with the Wolbachia-associated haplotype becoming abundant. Although it is difficult to identify the evolutionary forces causing the global increase of wMel, the parallel sweep of Wolbachia and an mtDNA haplotype suggests a fitness advantage of the Wolbachia infection.

Key Words: Drosophila melanogaster • mtDNA • Wolbachia • selection

Jody Hey, Associate Editor


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