Beetles, representing the majority of the insect species diversity, are characterized by thick and hard cuticle, which plays important roles for their environmental adaptation and underpins their inordinate diversity and prosperity. Here, we report a bacterial endosymbiont extremely specialized for sustaining beetle’s cuticle formation. Many weevils are associated with a γ-proteobacterial endosymbiont lineage Nardonella, whose evolutionary origin is estimated as older than 100 million years, but its functional aspect has been elusive. Sequencing of Nardonella genomes from diverse weevils unveiled drastic size reduction to 0.2 Mb, in which minimal complete gene sets for bacterial replication, transcription, and translation were present but almost all of the other metabolic pathway genes were missing. Notably, the only metabolic pathway retained in the Nardonella genomes was the tyrosine synthesis pathway, identifying tyrosine provisioning as Nardonella’s sole biological role. Weevils are armored with hard cuticle, tyrosine is the principal precursor for cuticle formation, and experimental suppression of Nardonella resulted in emergence of reddish and soft weevils with low tyrosine titer, confirming the importance of Nardonella-mediated tyrosine production for host’s cuticle formation and hardening. Notably, Nardonella’s tyrosine synthesis pathway was incomplete, lacking the final step transaminase gene. RNA sequencing identified host’s aminotransferase genes up-regulated in the bacteriome. RNA interference targeting the aminotransferase genes induced reddish and soft weevils with low tyrosine titer, verifying host’s final step regulation of the tyrosine synthesis pathway. Our finding highlights an impressively intimate and focused aspect of the host–symbiont metabolic integrity via streamlined evolution for a single biological function of ecological relevance.
Weevils constitute the most species-rich animal group with over 60,000 described species, many of which possess specialized symbiotic organs and harbor bacterial endosymbionts. Among the diverse microbial associates of weevils, Nardonella spp. represent the most ancient and widespread endosymbiont lineage, having co-speciated with the host weevils for over 125 million years. Thus far, however, no empirical work on the role of Nardonella for weevil biology has been reported. Here we investigated the biological role of the Nardonella endosymbiont for the West Indian sweet potato weevil, Euscepes postfasciatus. This insect is an experimentally tractable pest insect that can easily be reared on a natural diet of sweet potato root as well as on an agar-based artificial diet. By larval feeding on an antibiotic-containing artificial diet, Nardonella infection was effectively eliminated from the treated insects. The antibiotic-treated insects exhibited significantly lighter body weight and lower growth rate than the control insects. Then, the antibiotic-treated insects and the control insects were respectively allowed to mate and oviposit on fresh sweet potatoes without the antibiotic. The offspring of the antibiotic-treated insects, which were all Nardonella-negative, exhibited significantly lighter body weight, smaller body size, lower growth rate and paler body color in comparison with the offspring of the control insects, which were all Nardonella-positive. In conclusion, the Nardonella endosymbiont is involved in normal growth and development of the host weevil. The biological role of the endosymbiont probably underlies the long-lasting host-symbiont co-speciation in the evolutionary course of weevils.
h Huanglongbing, or citrus greening, is a devastating disease of citrus plants recently spreading worldwide, which is caused by an uncultivable bacterial pathogen, "Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus," and vectored by a phloem-sucking insect, Diaphorina citri. We investigated the infection density dynamics of "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus" in field populations of D. citri with experiments using field-collected insects to address how "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus" infection density in the vector insect is relevant to pathogen transmission to citrus plants. Of 500 insects continuously collected from "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus"-infected citrus trees with pathological symptoms in the spring and autumn of 2009, 497 (99.4%) were "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus" positive. The infections were systemic across head-thorax and abdomen, ranging from 10 3 to 10 7 bacteria per insect. In spring, the infection densities were low in March, at ϳ10 3 bacteria per insect, increasing up to 10 6 to 10 7 bacteria per insect in April and May, and decreasing to 10 5 to 10 6 bacteria per insect in late May, whereas the infection densities were constantly ϳ10 6 to 10 7 bacteria per insect in autumn. Statistical analysis suggested that several factors, such as insect sex, host trees, and collection dates, may be correlated with "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus" infection densities in field D. citri populations. Inoculation experiments with citrus seedlings using field-collected "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus"-infected insects suggested that (i) "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus"-transmitting insects tend to exhibit higher infection densities than do nontransmitting insects, (ii) a threshold level (ϳ10 6 bacteria per insect) of "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus" density in D. citri is required for successful transmission to citrus plants, and (iii) D. citri attaining the threshold infection level transmits "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus" to citrus plants in a stochastic manner. These findings provide valuable insights into understanding, predicting, and controlling this notorious citrus pathogen. H uanglongbing (HLB), or citrus greening, is one of the most serious diseases of citrus plants in many countries across Asia, Africa, and North and South America (1-5). This disease is caused by the phloem-inhabiting, noncultivable, and insect-vectored bacterial pathogens "Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus" (Asia, North America, and Brazil), "Ca. Liberibacter africanus" (Africa), and "Ca. Liberibacter americanus" (Brazil) (6-8).The Asian citrus psyllid Diaphorina citri Kuwayama (Hemiptera: Liviidae) is the principal vector of "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus" in Asia, North America, and Brazil (1-5). On the grounds that "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus"-infected D. citri insects are primarily responsible for infection and spread of HLB among citrus plants, monitoring and investigation of the infection dynamics of "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus" in field populations of D. citri are of pivotal importance (9-12). Furthermore, infection densities of "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus" within vector in...
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