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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Research Articles |
A Survey of the Bacteriophage WO in the Endosymbiotic Bacteria Wolbachia


* Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive (UMR 5558), CNRS, IFR 41, University Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, France
Department of Entomology, University of California, Riverside
Biology Department, University College London, London, United Kingdom
E-mail: gavotte{at}biomserv.univ-lyon1.fr.
| Abstract |
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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
| Introduction |
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Wolbachia are maternally inherited obligatory intracellular symbionts, which infect a wide range of arthropods and filarial nematodes (Bourtzis and Miller 2003
Phages are widespread viruses infecting bacteria that use the host cell molecular systems for replicating their own nucleic acid and for synthesizing their proteins. At the end of the phage infection cycle, the accumulation of phage particles in bacterial cytoplasm induces cell lysis and bacterial death. However, some bacteriophages can establish a not immediately lethal association with bacteria when they enter lysogenic cycles (Lwoff 1953
). In that case, a phage coding for advantageous proteins such as antibiotic resistance or toxins can be a valuable auxiliary for bacteria (Miao and Miller 1999
). Phages are also implicated in transduction, a mechanism allowing genetic transfer between bacterial cells (Miller 2001
).
The lytic activity of the phage WO is well documented (Masui et al. 2001
; Fujii et al. 2004
; Gavotte et al. 2004
), making its prolonged persistence in Wolbachia strains a puzzling observation. Indeed, strong selection pressures acting on endosymbiotic prokaryotes tend to eliminate parasitic DNA such as repeated DNA or phages (Andersson JO and Andersson SG 1999
). WO is one of the rare reported cases of bacteriophage infection in an intracellular bacterium (Storey et al. 1989
), suggesting that WO might provide some factors of importance to Wolbachia, for example, by contributing to the reproductive alterations they induce in their hosts.
Like numerous intracellular symbionts, Wolbachia cannot be cultured outside of insect cells, rendering the study of WO particularly difficult and making polymerase chain reaction (PCR) surveys and sequence analyses useful methods for studying Wolbachiaphage interactions. Based on such PCR surveys, Bordenstein and Wernegreen (2004)
estimated that WO infects 90% of Wolbachia strains. This estimate included 39 Wolbachia strains from A and B clade and inducing various reproductive alterations. However, for most of these phages, no sequence is available, especially for those inducing effects other than CI (Masui et al. 2000
; Bordenstein and Wernegreen 2004
; Gavotte et al. 2004
; Sanogo and Dobson 2004
; but for phage sequences from Wolbachia-inducing feminization, see Braquart-Varnier et al. 2005
and for one involved in host oogenesis, see Gavotte et al. 2004
).
Analysis of the diversity and the evolutionary dynamics of WOWolbachia associations is the first step to better understand the possible implication of WO in Wolbachia dynamics and effects on hosts, as was already proposed by some authors (Masui et al. 2000
; Fujii et al. 2004
). In the present study, phage WO infection was characterized using PCR survey and sequencing of a minor capsid protein in 31 new insect Wolbachia strains and 3 strains infecting nematodes. Together with data already published (Masui et al. 2000
; Bordenstein and Wernegreen 2004
; Gavotte et al. 2004
; Sanogo and Dobson 2004
; Braquart-Varnier et al. 2005
), our data set contains 40 phage types harbored by 52 Wolbachia strains covering the whole range of Wolbachia effects (CI, PI, MK, feminization, commensalisms, and mutualism). This study allows drawing new conclusions on the coevolutionary history of WO and Wolbachia.
| Materials and Methods |
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Biological Material
Table 1 reports all insect species used in this study together with the other species for which phage sequences were available in the literature (Masui et al. 2000
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DNA Extraction and PCR
DNA extraction was carried out using Chelex resin as described in Vavre et al. (1999)
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Enzymatic Digestion
Potential number of phage types was estimated by screening all orf7 PCR products with 2 restriction enzymes. Enzymes were selected to discriminate different phage types in Asobara tabida and Leptopilina heterotoma (Gavotte et al. 2004
Orf7 PCR products (5 µl) were digested over night using 2 restriction enzymes: DraI, and MboII. The restriction reaction was performed at 37 °C in 4-CORE B buffer (TrisHCl: 6 mM; MgCl2: 6 mM; NaCl: 50 mM; dithiothreitol: 50 mM; pH 7.5 at 37 °C) (PROMEGA, Charbonnières, France). Restriction profiles were observed under UV light after 1 h 30 min migration at 100 volts current on 3.5% agarose gel containing Ethidium Bromide.
Cloning and Sequencing
PCR products with digestion profile corresponding to a known unique sequence were sequenced directly; all others were cloned before sequencing. PCR products were cloned using the TOPO-TA Cloning Kit (Invitrogen, Abingdon, UK) after purification by cartridge method on Concert Rapid PCR Purification System kit (Life Technologies). Purified products were inserted into a plasmid pCR 2.1-TOPO containing ampicillin resistance gene. This construction was transferred into competent Escherichia coli of TOP10. Colonies containing plasmid were selected on Luria broth (LB) medium plates (Trypton 1%, Yeast extract 0.5%, NaCl 1%, and agarose 1%) with ampicillin (25 µg/ml), and those containing plasmids with the PCR product were discriminated by a white/blue screening. Selected clones were incubated in LB liquid medium with ampicillin (25 µg/ml). Plasmids were purified by alkaline extraction (Birnboim and Doly 1979
). A specific PCR with WOF/WOR primers was performed to select clones containing the right insert. Clones were selected using the same restriction method, and 410 clones were sequenced for each profile. In all cases, within a Wolbachia strain, clones sharing the same restriction profile gave all the same sequence. DNA sequences are available on GenBank under the following accession numbers: orf7: DQ380533 to DQ380547, orf2: DQ380528 to DQ380532, wsp: DQ380525 to DQ380527.
Alignments and Phylogeny
DNA sequences were first translated and peptide sequences aligned with MUSCLE software (Edgar 2004
) with parameter by default. Using RevTrans (Wernersson and Pedersen 2003
), peptide alignments were then used as a scaffold for constructing the corresponding DNA multiple alignment. GBLOCKS program (Castresana 2000
) was used to select reliable wsp regions. This left 390 sites, that is, 59% of the original alignment. The orf7 informative regions were selected manually. This left 281 sites, that is, 62% of the original alignment.
For both genes, maximum likelihood (ML) trees were computed using phyml (Guindon and Gascuel 2003
). Substitution models were determined with MrAIC.pl (Nylander 2004). For wsp, the optimal model was GTR + I + gamma (4), that is, general time reversible with a proportion of invariant sites and 4 categories of substitution rate to estimate the alpha parameter of the gamma law, whereas the best model for orf7 was the model GTR + gamma (4). Five hundred replicates of Bootstraps were made with SEQBOOT from the PHYLIP package (Felsenstein 1989).
Test for BacteriaPhage Coevolution
In order to test the significance of the global hypothesis of coevolution between the phages WO and the Wolbachia strains, we used the ParaFit test (Legendre et al. 2002
). This test is the function of the 2 matrices of phylogenetic distances (B and C) and of the matrix of hostparasite association links (A). These 3 matrices can be combined in a fourth one: D (D = CA'B), which describes the hostparasite association. To test the congruence between the 2 phylogenies, a global statistic, called ParaFitGlobal, is derived from D [ParaFitGlobal = trace(D'D)]. By permuting at random the row of the matrix A, a distribution of the ParaFitGlobal values can be obtained. The probability for the ParaFitGlobal value obtained from the data to be larger than or equal to most of the ParaFitGlobal values obtained under permutation can then be calculated. The ParaFit test is robust to the existence of several parasites per host (Legendre et al. 2002
).
| Results |
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Phage Typing
Phage presence was detected by specific PCR on the orf7 marker, a gene coding for a minor capsid protein used to detect WO (Masui et al. 2000
To determine the diversity of phage infection within each bacterial strain, the nucleotide sequence of orf7 was used. A phage type was defined by grouping all phages sharing more than 99% similarity on orf7 DNA sequences based upon pure clones sequencing repeats. Usefulness of orf7 as a phage phylogenetic marker was assessed by comparing the phylogenies obtained with orf7 and orf2 markers as in Bordenstein and Wernegreen (2004)
. Unfortunately, our sequences do not locate in the same gene region of the orf2, making it impossible to directly compare the 2 studies. Phylogenies were established with ML method, HKY model for orf2, and GTR for orf7 with 500 bootstrap replicates. Congruency between orf7 and orf2 phylogenies is good (fig. 1) as has been reported by Bordenstein and Wernegreen (2004)
. Moreover, for 3 different Wolbachia strains (wRi, wDmel, wLhet1) showing the same orf7 and orf2 sequences, a part of wd0634 gene that codes for a resolvase was also sequenced. The 3 sequences obtained were also completely identical. Thus, even though recombination can happen in phages (Bordenstein and Wernegreen 2004
), the orf7 seems to be a good phylogenetic marker.
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Phage Diversity
The phage infection status (including presence of WO and sequence on orf7) of 27 new Wolbachia strains was established. For 4 other strains, present in multiply infected insects (wTkay1 and wTkay2) or with weak orf7 PCR signal (wTnaw and wDbip), phage infection has not been resolved (table 1).
Phage WO was never detected in the nematode species studied (Litosomoides sigmodontis and Dirofilaria immitis), and no related sequences were found on the complete genome of Brugia malayi symbiont by Blast (http://tools.neb.com/wolbachia/search.html, Foster et al. 2005
). Because of their particular phylogenetic position compared with Wolbachia from arthropods, these strains are not included in subsequent analyses. Wolbachia from Trichogramma were also found to be devoid of phage. The only exception is the Wolbachia infecting Trichogramma kaykai. However, a second Wolbachia strain wTkay2, different from the strains inducing PI, is also present in T. kaykai (Van Meer et al. 1999
). Based on different genetic markers, this strain is identical to the Wolbachia infecting Ephestia kuehniella and could have been transferred horizontally because E. kuehniella is the host used for Trichogramma rearing.
Phage Distribution
Together with previously published data (Masui et al. 2000
; Bordenstein and Wernegreen 2004
; Gavotte et al. 2004
; Braquart-Varnier et al. 2005
), the phage infection status of 48 bacterial strains is known (fig. 2). Among these strains, 30% are devoid of phage, but this percentage is probably overestimated because most uninfected strains (12 out of 14) are from Trichogramma hosts that we extensively surveyed. Most phage-infected Wolbachia strains display low numbers of phages, 85% (28 of 34) showing only 1 or 2 different phage types.
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Most Wolbachia strains display identical and complete infection for all individuals tested, but 4 proved polymorphic for phage infection: wPdub infecting Pachycrepoideus dubius (7 Wolbachia-infected individuals showing phage infection out of 13 tested), wTdro infecting Trichopria drosophilae sp. (3 of 9), wLcla infecting Leptopilina clavipes (5 of 14), and wLvic infecting Leptopilina victoriae (9 of 11).
Multiple Phage Infection
Multiple phage infection, where a Wolbachia strain displays more than one phage type, has been observed in 12 bacterial strains: wEcauA displays 5 phage types, wNvitA 4 phage types, wNlonA, wAtab3, and wTtai 3 phage types each, and wMuni, wPdub, wAvul, wEcauB, wLcla, and wBol1 phage types each (table 1).
In order to test whether phages infecting a given Wolbachia strain are more closely related to each other than to phages chosen at random, we rebuilt the observed distribution of multiple infection (1 strain with 5 phages, 1 with 4 phages, 4 with 3 phages, and 6 with 2 phages) by randomly drawing phages. Monte Carlo simulation (Raeside 1976
) was done by 5000 random drawings. Between each drawing, all phages were put back because some multiply infected bacteria display common phage types. For each drawing, we calculated the average of tree branch length realized by ML method between coinfecting phages. The sampling distribution of genetic distances is normal (KolmogorovSmirnov test, D = 0.0147; P = 0.2138) with an average of 0.261 and a standard deviation of 0.029 (fig. 3). The observed average is 0.252 with a standard deviation of 0.032. Thus, phage types coinfecting a Wolbachia strain are not more related than expected by chance (P = 0.628).
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Phage Phylogeny
Phage phylogeny, based on orf7, and Wolbachia phylogeny, based on wsp (Braig et al. 1998
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No congruence was found between phage and bacterial phylogenies (ParaFit test, P = 0.1319). Thus, it appears that phages do not cospeciate often enough with their Wolbachia host to create strong phylogenetic signal, similar to the lack of congruence between the phylogenies of Wolbachia and their insect hosts. Comparisons between phage and insect host phylogenies are also not congruent (data not shown).
However, a few correlations can be observed: the 2 pairs of Wolbachia wPdub/wMuni and wEkue/wTkay2 are potentially originating from bacterial horizontal transfers (Van Meer et al. 1999; Vavre et al. 1999
) and display the same wsp, 16S RNA, and ftsZ sequences and also carry the same phage infection. This bacteriophage WOWolbachia combination was probably transferred between different insect hosts. However, absence of correlation between phage and bacterial phylogenies indicates that the bacteriophage WO can be transferred horizontally without its bacterial host between different Wolbachia strains or insects and can infect new Wolbachia hosts, as previously suggested based on smaller data sets (Masui et al. 2000
; Bordenstein and Wernegreen 2004
).
Phage and Wolbachia Effects
Comparing the phage phylogeny with the effects induced by their Wolbachia hosts (fig. 5) does not suggest any evident correlation between the phage phylogeny and the effect of the Wolbachia strain it infects. Indeed, the CI, MK, and PI phenotypes are scattered throughout the phylogeny, and the phages associated with these effects form paraphyletic groups. Moreover, a number of phage-infected bacteria (e.g., wPdub) do not induce any reproductive effects, whereas some uninfected Wolbachia strains are able to induce reproductive effects: all Trichogramma symbionts induce PI and wDres induces CI (Stouthamer and Kazmer 1994
; Werren and Jaenike 1995
).
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| Discussion |
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Intracellular bacteria are usually not prone to bacteriophage infection, owing both to selection for a reduction of their genome size and limited exposure to infection associated with their isolated lifestyle (Franck et al. 2002). However, we observed that infection with the bacteriophage WO is a common feature in Wolbachia because it was detected in 70% of the strains and this proportion is probably an underestimation due to the high representation of Trichogramma species in the data set.
The general absence of congruence between phages and Wolbachia phylogenies demonstrates that WO is able to successfully transfer itself horizontally between different insects, with or without its bacterial host, as already suggested by some studies on fewer Wolbachiaphage associations (Masui et al. 2000
; Bordenstein and Wernegreen 2004
). Random mixing of phages is also suggested by the fact that phages sharing the same Wolbachia are not more related to each other than expected by chance. Three hypotheses can be drawn for these transfers: 1) Bacteriophage WO particles can be released, under some conditions, in the proximity of insect cells infected by Wolbachia, and they can pass through the eukaryote cell wall and then initiate new infections. Parasitoid infection represents a potential route for such horizontal transfer. Whatever the result of parasitism (success or failure), the Wolbachia strain present in the "winner" insect comes into contact with new potential phage infection. 2) Bacteriophage WO is able to infect other bacteria than Wolbachia. If these bacteria are free living and potentially present in various environments, the possibility for Wolbachia to acquire new phages is increased compared with transmission being only possible between Wolbachia strains. It is interesting to note that the closest relative of the WO phage of Wolbachia is a phage found in the plant pathogen Xylella fastidiosa, which is transmitted by the Wolbachia-infected Glassy-winged sharpshooter (Simpson et al. 2000
). 3) Previous studies observed that Wolbachia could be transmitted horizontally between insects naturally (Huigens et al. 2004
) or by artificial methods (Boyle et al. 1993
). Because Wolbachia is present in numerous ecologically related species, transfer of a Wolbachia strain to an insect already infected by another Wolbachia strain will establish contact among various bacterial strains with various phage types. Even if the bacteria transferred are eliminated later, which is probably the most common case, new phage infection could have been initiated.
Whatever the mechanism, all observations suggest that the bacteriophage WO can spread among Wolbachia strains through horizontal transfers of phage, indicating that WO has important infectious capacities. However, phage transfer might not be as frequent as is suggested by the absence of congruence between Wolbachia and phage phylogenies. For instance, the 3 Wolbachia strains coinfecting each individual of the parasitoid L. heterotoma do not share phage infections (Gavotte et al. 2004
). Moreover, phages were not detected in 2 specific groups of Wolbachia: those infecting nematodes and Trichogramma species (Schilthuizen and Stouthamer 1997
; Bandi et al. 2001
). Whether these groups have lost previous infection or have never been infected is unclear, but it does show that Wolbachia strains can remain uninfected for long periods of time. The unusually high specialization of these 2 Wolbachia clades, both in terms of host range and phenotypic effects, might limit the opportunity of phage acquisition. Alternatively, lack of phage infection might also explain the high specialization of these Wolbachia, by limiting genome plasticity and gene transfers.
Could the widespread association of Wolbachia and the bacteriophage WO mean that the bacteriophage WO may be a beneficial auxiliary to Wolbachia, as is found in various other phage/bacteria couples (Miao and Miller 1999
)? Among the functions potentially encoded for by the phage genome are the reproductive effects of Wolbachia on their insect host (Stouthamer et al. 1999
). However, 1) no correlation was observed between phage presence or phylogeny and reproductive effects and 2) among PI-inducing Wolbachia, some are infected by phages (wLcla, wMuni, and wTnaw) but others are not (Trichogramma strains), showing that the diverse effects of Wolbachia are not due to a small number of specialized WO phages that move from one Wolbachia strain to another. This does not rule out a possible implication of WO in the effect of Wolbachia, as suggested by recent finding in mosquito where ankyrin genes within the phage genome might be involved in the induction of CI (Sinkins et al. 2005
). Different phages might be involved in the induction of similar (on the basis of their phenotype) effects. Moreover, molecular mechanisms involved in reproductive effect of Wolbachia probably involve Wolbachia x host interaction that the phage might mediate. Finally, the phage WO could be the vector of genes involved in Wolbachia's effect, but the frequent rearrangements occurring in the Wolbachia genomes could rapidly lead to the transfer of these genes on the bacterial chromosome itself, thereby breaking down the association between the phage and the Wolbachia effect. In conclusion, the present study suggests that the success of the bacteriophage WO mainly derives from its ability to be transferred among bacterial hosts (using a currently unknown mechanism), rather than from any beneficial effect contributed to its Wolbachia host. This situation parallels the relationship between Wolbachia and its arthropod hosts (Hurst and Mc Vean 1996
).
| Acknowledgements |
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We thank Stephen Dobson and Tim Vogel for suggestions for improving this paper. We thank Serge Morand, Gilsang Jeong, Greg Hurst, Chris Jiggins and Bernard Pintureau to provide a part of insect and nematodes samples used in this study. This study was partly supported by EuWol project (EU) QLK3-2000-01079 and CNRS (UMR 5558 and IFR 41).
| Footnotes |
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1 Present address: Department of Entomology, S225 Agricultural Science Center BuildingNorth Lexington.
Aoife McLysaght, Associate Editor
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