Whitefly Endosymbionts: Biology, Evolution, and Plant Virus Interactions

Abstract

Whiteflies (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) are sap-feeding global agricultural pests. These piercing-sucking insects have coevolved with intracellular endosymbiotic bacteria that help to supplement their nutrient-poor plant sap diets with essential amino acids and carotenoids. These obligate, primary endosymbionts have been incorporated into specialized organs called bacteriomes where they sometimes coexist with facultative, secondary endosymbionts. All whitefly species harbor the primary endosymbiont Candidatus Portiera aleyrodidarum and have a variable number of secondary endosymbionts. The secondary endosymbiont complement harbored by the cryptic whitefly species Bemisia tabaci is particularly complex with various assemblages of seven different genera identified to date. In this review, we discuss whitefly associated primary and secondary endosymbionts. We focus on those associated with the notorious B. tabaci species complex with emphasis on their biological characteristics and diversity. We also discuss their interactions with phytopathogenic begomoviruses (family Geminiviridae), which are transmitted exclusively by B. tabaci in a persistent-circulative manner. Unraveling the complex interactions of these endosymbionts with their insect hosts and plant viruses could lead to advancements in whitefly and whitefly transmitted virus management.

Whitefly endosymbionts: IPM opportunity or tilting at windmills?

“…Nevertheless, these results do not directly translate into the conclusion that Hamiltonella is a nutritional symbiont as phloem composition is very different from sucrose and yeast extract diet mixture, in many more ways than nitrogen content (Su et al 2014a ). Antibiotic treatment in this study may have influenced the results as well, as it is known that rifampicin affects primary endosymbiont densities, gut bacterial population, and potentially also the host directly, all of which could affect the fitness evaluation (Andreason et al 2020 ; Zhao et al 2019 ; Su et al 2014a ).…”

“…This review aims to introduce the reader to the most diverse endosymbiont community explored to date and its implications on the biology of its hosts. Although biology, evolution, and plant virus interactions of whitefly endosymbionts have recently been reviewed by Andreason et al ( 2020 ), the literature on metabolic potential of whitefly endosymbiotic bacteria, and molecular interactions in the endosymbiont-whitefly-plant-virus system is still scattered across experimental articles. In the same time, good understanding of endosymbiont roles and processes that they take part into is essential for their exploitation in the control of whiteflies and whitefly-borne viruses.…”

Sex-based de novo transcriptome assemblies of the parasitoid wasp Encarsia suzannae, a host of the manipulative heritable symbiont Cardinium hertigii

“…For this approach, BBMap (RRID: SCR_016965 ) from BBTools was used to initially map the quality-trimmed reads to the genomes of Cardinium hertigii c Eper1 and the endosymbionts of Bemisia tabaci MEAM1, with which E. suzannae females and males have direct or indirect contact (i.e., Hamiltonella defensa , Portiera aleyrodidarum , and Rickettsia sp. MEAM1 [ 34 , 35 ] ). It was also determined that the E. sp.…”

Sex-based de novo transcriptome assemblies of the parasitoid wasp Encarsia suzannae, a host of the manipulative heritable symbiont Cardinium hertigii

“…In this approach, BBMap (from BBTools) was used to initially map quality-trimmed reads to the genomes of Cardinium hertigii c Eper1 and the endosymbionts of Bemisia tabaci MEAM1 (with which E. suzannae females and males have direct or indirect contact): Hamiltonella defensa, Portiera aleyrodidarum , and Rickettsia sp. MEAM1 [34, 35]. It was also determined that the E .…”