A novel Wolbachia strain from the rice moth Corcyra cephalonica induces reproductive incompatibility in the whitefly Bemisia tabaci: sequence typing combined with phenotypic evidence

作者：Hu Hong Yan; Li Zheng Xi^*

来源：Environmental Microbiology Reports, 2015, 7(3): 508-515.

DOI：10.1111/1758-2229.12279

Wolbachia are a group of maternally inherited bacteria frequently found in arthropods and filarial nematodes. They have recently attracted attention for their ecological roles in manipulating host reproduction, their potential use in biological control of pest insects and medical significance. Classification of Wolbachia strains is currently solely based on molecular methods. However, the strains even with identical sequence types may induce different host phenotypes. Here we isolated a Wolbachia strain from the rice moth Corcyra cephalonica (designated as wCcep_B_BJ), which was shown to share multilocus sequence typing and Wolbachia surface protein hypervariable region profiles with a cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI)-inducing strain in supergroup B, but the phenotype wCcep_B_BJ may induce needs to be determined. We thus transinfected it into the whitefly Bemisia tabaci harbouring an A-Wolbachia through nymphal microinjection. Fluorescent in situ hybridization demonstrated that wCcep_B_BJ was successfully transinfected into B. tabaci and transmitted to offspring through host eggs. Reciprocal cross showed that wCcep_B_BJ induced a strong bidirectional CI in the transinfected host without imposing a significant cost on female fecundity. Our results suggest that wCcep_B_BJ may be a promising strain for biocontrol of B. tabaci, an important agricultural pest insect.

• 出版日期2015-6
• 单位中国农业大学