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- Title
Identification of Parthenogenesis-Inducing Effector Proteins in Wolbachia.
- Authors
Fricke, Laura C; Lindsey, Amelia R I
- Abstract
Bacteria in the genus Wolbachia have evolved numerous strategies to manipulate arthropod sex, including the conversion of would-be male offspring to asexually reproducing females. This so-called "parthenogenesis induction" phenotype can be found in a number of Wolbachia strains that infect arthropods with haplodiploid sex determination systems, including parasitoid wasps. Despite the discovery of microbe-mediated parthenogenesis more than 30 yr ago, the underlying genetic mechanisms have remained elusive. We used a suite of genomic, computational, and molecular tools to identify and characterize two proteins that are uniquely found in parthenogenesis-inducing Wolbachia and have strong signatures of host-associated bacterial effector proteins. These putative parthenogenesis-inducing proteins have structural homology to eukaryotic protein domains including nucleoporins, the key insect sex determining factor Transformer, and a eukaryotic-like serine–threonine kinase with leucine-rich repeats. Furthermore, these proteins significantly impact eukaryotic cell biology in the model Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We suggest that these proteins are parthenogenesis-inducing factors and our results indicate that this would be made possible by a novel mechanism of bacterial-host interaction.
- Subjects
WOLBACHIA; BACTERIAL proteins; PROTEIN domains; CYTOLOGY; SEX allocation; SEX determination; PARASITOIDS
- Publication
Genome Biology & Evolution, 2024, Vol 16, Issue 4, p1
- ISSN
1759-6653
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/gbe/evae036