Wolbachia Infection in Cricket 2505 Gene in the Template DNA Solution Was Determined by Analysis Table 1
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The Journal of Experimental Biology 203, 2503–2509 (2000) 2503 Printed in Great Britain © The Company of Biologists Limited 2000 JEB2738 WOLBACHIA INFECTION AND CYTOPLASMIC INCOMPATIBILITY IN THE CRICKET TELEOGRYLLUS TAIWANEMMA SATORU KAMODA, SHINJI MASUI, HAJIME ISHIKAWA AND TETSUHIKO SASAKI* Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan *Author for correspondence (e-mail: [email protected]) Accepted 25 May; published on WWW 20 July 2000 Summary Wolbachia are cytoplasmically inherited bacteria found chain reaction assays; they were detected in the antennae, in many arthropods. They induce various reproductive heads, forewings, hindwings, testes, ovaries, Malpighian alterations in their hosts, including cytoplasmic tubules, foot muscles and fat bodies. Quantitative incompatibility, thelytokous parthenogenesis, feminization polymerase chain reaction assays showed that the bacterial and male-killing. In this study, we examined Wolbachia density was highest in the fat bodies, followed by the infection and its effects on the host cricket Teleogryllus ovaries and testes. Wolbachia were not detected in the taiwanemma. In a phylogenetic study based on the wsp gene haemolymph or in mature spermatozoa. The spermatozoa coding for a Wolbachia surface protein, the Wolbachia of the infected male may be modified by the presence of strain harboured by T. taiwanemma was clustered together Wolbachia during its development. To examine this with those harboured by Laodelphax striatellus, Tribolium possibility, we compared the profiles of sperm proteins confusum, Acraea encedon, Trichogramma deion and Adalia between the infected and uninfected males using two- bipunctata. Crossing experiments using the Wolbachia- dimensional gel electrophoresis. However, no differences in infected and uninfected strains of cricket showed that the the protein profiles were observed. infection is associated with the expression of unidirectional cytoplasmic incompatibility: the egg hatch rate in the incompatible cross between the infected males and Key words: Wolbachia, cricket, Teleogryllus taiwanemma, uninfected females was 20.3 %. We also examined the cytoplasmic incompatibility, bacterial density, two-dimensional gel distribution of Wolbachia within the host using polymerase electrophoresis. Introduction Wolbachia are intracellular bacteria present in a wide range cross is compatible. In addition, bidirectional incompatibilities of arthropods, particularly in insects. In a previous field survey are observed when males and females carry different by Werren et al. (1995b), Wolbachia were found in more than Wolbachia strains. It has been reported that cytoplasmic 16 % of the insects sampled. Phylogenetic analyses of the incompatibility arises from defects in paternal chromatin Wolbachia harboured by various host species have shown that condensation during mitosis in Drosophila simulans (O’Neill the Wolbachia clade can be divided into two major groups, and Karr, 1990; Lassy and Karr, 1996; Callaini et al., 1997), designated A and B (Werren et al., 1995a). Nasonia vitripennis (Reed and Werren, 1995) and Culex Wolbachia are known to induce various reproductive pipiens (Jost, 1971). Cytological examinations in several alterations in their hosts, including cytoplasmic species have revealed that the bacteria in spermatids are incompatibility, thelytokous parthenogenesis, feminization released during spermatogenesis and are absent from the and male-killing (for reviews, see Werren, 1997; Stouthamer mature spermatozoa (Wright and Barr, 1980; Binnington and et al., 1999). Cytoplasmic incompatibility is a crossing Hoffmann, 1989; O’Neill, 1989). It is assumed that Wolbachia incompatibility that results in embryonic mortality in diploid modify the spermatozoa during spermatogenesis and that this species. In haplodiploid species such as wasps, in which modification is responsible for the expression of cytoplasmic haploid embryos develop into males, cytoplasmic incompatibility. However, few investigations have attempted incompatibility causes male-biased sex ratios. The effect of to detect the modification in the spermatozoa of Wolbachia- cytoplasmic incompatibility on crossability is typically infected insects, mainly because it is difficult to obtain sperm unidirectional: the cross between infected males and samples from insects in which cytoplasmic incompatibility has uninfected females is incompatible, whereas the reciprocal been expressed. 2504 S. KAMODA AND OTHERS Males of orthopteran insects release spermatophores GAAAC-3′) and wsp691R (5′-AAAAATTAAACGCTACT- containing pure spermatozoa when they mate. Because of this CCA-3′). These primers amplify a DNA fragment of habit, samples of pure spermatozoa can be collected from the approximately 600 base pairs (bp). The cycling conditions males of this insect group. However, despite this advantage, no consisted of 5 min at 94 °C, followed by 35 cycles of 30 s at laboratory strain of an orthopteran insect has been established 94 °C, 30 s at 52 °C, and 1 min at 72 °C, and a final cycle of as an insect model for the study of cytoplasmic incompatibility. 5 min at 72 °C. The PCR products were directly ligated into Masui et al. (1997) previously reported that a laboratory pGEM-T vectors (Promega), and five independent clones were strain of the cricket Teleogryllus taiwanemma was infected with sequenced using an ABI PRISM 310 genetic analyzer (PE B-group Wolbachia, although the effect of the infection was Applied Biosystems). The wsp sequence has been submitted to unclear. In this study, we further investigated Wolbachia the GenBank database under accession number AB035514. infection in T. taiwanemma. The phylogenetic position of the This sequence was aligned to the wsp sequences reported by Wolbachia was estimated on the basis of the wsp gene that Zhou et al. (1998) and Hurst et al. (1999). A 41 bp region codes for a Wolbachia surface protein. To clarify the phenotype (positions 519–559) corresponding to the third hypervariable induced by the Wolbachia, we performed crossing experiments region of the gene (Braig et al., 1998) was omitted from the and demonstrated that cytoplasmic incompatibility is expressed, analysis because it could not be aligned with confidence (Zhou giving relatively high embryonic mortality. We also examined et al., 1998). Sites with gaps were also excluded from the the presence of Wolbachia in various tissues of the host using aligned data set. The resulting alignment of approximately 500 the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). In addition, the bacterial bases was used to construct a neighbour-joining tree (Saitou density in each tissue was determined by quantitative PCR and Nei, 1987) with Kimura’s two-parameter distance assays. After we had confirmed that the spermatozoa did not (Kimura, 1980) using the program package Clustal W contain Wolbachia, we compared the profiles of sperm proteins (Thompson et al., 1994). A bootstrap test (Felsenstein, 1981) between the infected and uninfected males. was performed with 1000 replications. Detection of Wolbachia Materials and methods The presence of Wolbachia in various tissues of T. Insects taiwanemma was tested by PCR using the primer sets ftsZBf A strain of the cricket Teleogryllus taiwanemma infected with (5′-CCGATGCTCAAGCGTTAGAG-3′) and ftsZBr (5′- a B-group Wolbachia strain (wTai) was maintained under 16 h:8 h CCACTTAACTCTTTCGTTTG-3′), which specifically light:dark cycle at 25 °C. The crickets were fed an insect food amplify the ftsZ cell cycle gene of B-group Wolbachia (Werren purchased from Oriental Yeast, Tokyo, Japan, and provided with et al., 1995a). The PCR cycling conditions consisted of 5 min tap water. To establish a Wolbachia-free strain, the infected at 94 °C, followed by 35 cycles of 30 s at 94 °C, 30 s at 55 °C, insects were given an aqueous solution of tetracycline and 1 min at 72 °C, and a final cycle of 5 min at 72 °C. To hydrochloride (0.5 % w/v) for two generations. This strain was confirm successful DNA extraction, the samples were also reared without tetracycline for at least two generations subjected to PCR using primers specific for the insect (approximately 5 months) before being subjected to experiments. pgi gene that codes phosphoglucose isomerase (Katz and Harrison, 1997). The primers used were pgiF DNA extraction (5′-AACAAGGAGATATGGAATCTAATGG-3′) and pgiR The antennae, heads, forewings, hindwings, testes, ovaries, (5′-TTCCAGGTTCACCCCACA-3′). The cycling conditions Malpighian tubules, foot muscles and fat bodies were obtained were the same as those for the amplification of the ftsZ gene. by dissection from adult insects. Haemolymph, which oozed out through the incision when a hindleg was cut, was collected in Quantitative PCR a small pipette. To obtain pure sperm samples, we cut the end To determine the Wolbachia density in each tissue, of a spermatophore and immersed it in phosphate-buffered quantitative PCR was performed in a LightCycler (Roche −1 −1 saline (PBS; 137 mmol l NaCl, 8.1 mmol l Na2HPO4, Diagnostics). A 294 bp fragment of the internal region −1 −1 2.68 mmol l KCl, 1.47 mmol l KH2PO4, pH 7.5). The of the VirD4 gene (GenBank accession number spermatozoa released into PBS was collected by centrifugation. AB041342) was amplified using the primers VirD4F (5′- These samples were homogenized in saline/Tris/EDTA (STE; ATCAGAGAAAGACATACGAAAAGCAGG) and VirD4R 100 mmol l−1 NaCl, 10 mmol l−1 Tris pH 8.0, 1 mmol l−1 EDTA, (5′-CAATGGCTTACCCCATCTGGC). The 20 µl