Coevolution of Drosophila melanogaster mtDNA and Wolbachia Genotypes

Abstract

Maternally inherited microorganisms can influence the mtDNA pattern of variation in hosts. This influence is driven by selection among symbionts and can cause the frequency of mitochondrial variants in the population to eventually increase or decrease. Wolbachia infection is common and widespread in Drosophila melanogaster populations. We compared genetic variability of D. melanogaster mitotypes with Wolbachia genotypes among isofemale lines associated with different geographic locations and time intervals to study coevolution of the mtDNA and Wolbachia. Phylogenetic analysis of D. melanogaster mtDNA revealed two clades diverged in Africa, each associated with one of the two Wolbachia genotype groups. No evidence of horizontal transmission of Wolbachia between maternal lineages has been found. All the mtDNA variants that occur in infected isofemale lines are found in uninfected isofemale lines and vice versa, which is indicative of a recent loss of infection from some maternal fly lineages and confirms a significant role of Wolbachia in the D. melanogaster mtDNA pattern of variation. Finally, we present a comparative analysis of biogeographic distribution of D. melanogaster mitotypes all over the world.

Experimental evolution reveals habitat‐specific fitness dynamics among Wolbachia clades in Drosophila melanogaster

“…), which did not detect Wolbachia from clade V and found only a few flies infected with clade VI. While clade V seems to be widely distributed in European D. melanogaster (Ilinsky ), although not in all populations (Early & Clark ), the high frequency of clade VI is, to our knowledge, unprecedented.…”

“…The corresponding mtDNA, mt18, clustered instead to clade V. A complete congruence of mtDNA and Wolbachia genealogies has been widely documented in D. melanogaster (Richardson et al . ; Early & Clark ; Ilinsky ). On this basis, we could assign the Wolbachia strain w18 to clade V, the clade of its corresponding mtDNA (Fig.…”

“…We identified Wolbachia haplotypes from three different clades, including, to our knowledge, the first full genome of clade V. To date, clade V had only been observed in the analysis of mtDNA data of populations from Eurasia (Richardson et al . ; Early & Clark ; Ilinsky ). Clades V and VI, which are at low frequency in North America and some European populations (Riegler et al .…”

Wolbachia modifies thermal preference in Drosophila melanogaster

“…Both wMel and wMelCS infect natural populations of D. melanogaster. Historically, wMelCS existed globally at higher prevalence, but in the recent past wMel has almost completely replaced the more ancestral wMelCS strain in worldwide populations (Riegler et al, 2005;Nunes et al, 2008;Richardson et al, 2012;Ilinsky, 2013;Early and Clark, 2013). In contrast, wMelPop was isolated from a laboratory stock of D. melanogaster during a survey of genetic mutations and represents a pathogenic variant of wMelCS (Min and Benzer, 1997;Richardson et al, 2012;Chrostek et al, 2013).…”

Prevalence rates of Wolbachia endosymbiotic bacterium in natural populations of Ostrinia Nubilalis and Ostrinia Scapulalis (Lepidoptera: Pyraloidea: Crambidae) in South-Western Russia

“…Важной особенностью этих эндоцитобионтов является строгий материнский тип наследования, что находит свое отраже-ние в сопряженных изменениях генома бактерии и мтДНК клетки хозяи-на [2]. Бактерии рода Wolbachia не приводят к каким-либо выраженным па-тологическим процессам в природных популяциях беспозвоночных-хозяев, однако во многих случаях существенно влияют на их репродуктивную био-логию.…”