The Endosymbiotic Bacterium Wolbachia Selectively Kills Male Hosts by Targeting the Masculinizing Gene
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- Elizabeth Ann McGraw
- editor
書誌事項
- 公開日
- 2015-07-14
- 資源種別
- journal article
- 権利情報
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- http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- DOI
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- 10.1371/journal.ppat.1005048
- 公開者
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
説明
Pathogens are known to manipulate the reproduction and development of their hosts for their own benefit. Wolbachia is an endosymbiotic bacterium that infects a wide range of insect species. Wolbachia is known as an example of a parasite that manipulates the sex of its host's progeny. Infection of Ostrinia moths by Wolbachia causes the production of all-female progeny, however, the mechanism of how Wolbachia accomplishes this male-specific killing is unknown. Here we show for the first time that Wolbachia targets the host masculinizing gene of Ostrinia to accomplish male-killing. We found that Wolbachia-infected O. furnacalis embryos do not express the male-specific splice variant of doublesex, a gene which acts at the downstream end of the sex differentiation cascade, throughout embryonic development. Transcriptome analysis revealed that Wolbachia infection markedly reduces the mRNA level of Masc, a gene that encodes a protein required for both masculinization and dosage compensation in the silkworm Bombyx mori. Detailed bioinformatic analysis also elucidated that dosage compensation of Z-linked genes fails in Wolbachia-infected O. furnacalis embryos, a phenomenon that is extremely similar to that observed in Masc mRNA-depleted male embryos of B. mori. Finally, injection of in vitro transcribed Masc cRNA into Wolbachia-infected embryos rescued male progeny. Our results show that Wolbachia-induced male-killing is caused by a failure of dosage compensation via repression of the host masculinizing gene. Our study also shows a novel strategy by which a pathogen hijacks the host sex determination cascade.
収録刊行物
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- PLOS Pathogens
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PLOS Pathogens 11 (7), e1005048-, 2015-07-14
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
