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MBE Advance Access first published online on June 12, 2008
This version published online on June 12, 2008

Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msn133
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© The Author 2008. 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
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 Article

Genome Evolution of Wolbachia Strain wPip from the Culex pipiens Group

Lisa Klasson1, Thomas Walker1, Mohammed Sebaihia2, Mandy J. Sanders2, Michael A. Quail2, Angela Lord2, Susanne Sanders2, Julie Earl3, Scott L. O'Neill4, Nicholas Thomson2, Steven P. Sinkins1,* and Julian Parkhill2,*

1 Peter Medawar Building for Pathogen Research and Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road. Oxford OX1 3PS, UK
2 Pathogen Sequencing Unit, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, UK
3 Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Pembroke Place, Liverpool L3 5QA
4 School of Integrative Biology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072 Australia

* corresponding author SPS steven.sinkins{at}zoo.ox.ac.uk. tel. +44 (0)1865 281047 fax +44 (0)1865 281275

Received for publication April 1, 2008. Revision received May 30, 2008. Revision received June 6, 2008. Accepted for publication June 7, 2008.

The obligate intracellular bacterium Wolbachia pipientis strain wPip induces cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), patterns of crossing sterility, in the Culex pipiens group of mosquitoes. The complete sequence is presented of the 1.48 Mbp genome of wPip which encodes 1386 CDS, representing the first genome sequence of a B-supergroup Wolbachia. Comparisons were made with the smaller genomes of Wolbachia strains wMel of Drosophila melanogaster, an A-supergroup Wolbachia that is also a CI-inducer, and wBm, a mutualist of Brugia malayi nematodes that belongs to the D-supergroup of Wolbachia. Despite extensive gene order re-arrangement, a core set of Wolbachia genes shared between the three genomes can be identified and contrasts with a flexible gene pool where rapid evolution has taken place. There are much more extensive prophage and ankyrin repeat encoding (ANK) gene components of the wPip genome compared to wMel and wBm, and both are likely to be of considerable importance in wPip biology. Five WO-B-like prophage regions are present and contain some genes that are identical or highly similar in multiple prophage copies, while other genes are unique, and it is likely that extensive recombination, duplication and insertion has occurred between copies. A much larger number of genes encode ankyrin repeat (ANK) proteins in wPip, with 60 present compared to 23 in wMel, many of which are within or close to the prophage regions. It is likely that this pattern is partly a result of expansions in the wPip lineage, due for example to gene duplication, but their presence is in some cases more ancient. The wPip genome underlines the considerable evolutionary flexibility of Wolbachia, providing clear evidence for the rapid evolution of ANK-encoding genes and of prophage regions. This host-Wolbachia system, with its complex patterns of sterility induced between populations, now provides an excellent model for unravelling the molecular systems underlying host reproductive manipulation.

Key Words: endosymbiont • Wolbachia • mosquito • cytoplasmic incompatibility • prophage • ankyrin


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