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In vitro cultivation of Wolbachia pipientis in an Aedes albopictus cell line
Author(s) -
O'Neill S. L.,
M. Pettigrew M.,
Sinkins S. P.,
Braig H. R.,
Andreadis T. G.,
Tesh R. B.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
insect molecular biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.955
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1365-2583
pISSN - 0962-1075
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2583.1997.00157.x
Subject(s) - biology , wolbachia , aedes albopictus , cytoplasmic incompatibility , virology , microbiology and biotechnology , aedes , cell culture , host (biology) , genetics , botany , larva , aedes aegypti , dengue fever
A continuous cell line, Aa23, was established from eggs of a strain of the Asian tiger mosquito,Aedes albopictus, naturally infected with the intracellular symbiontWolbachia pipientis. The resulting cell line was shown to be persistently infected with the bacterial endosymbiont. Treatment with antibiotics cured the cells of the infection. In the course of establishing this cell line it was noticed that RFLPs in the PCR products of twoWolbachiagenes from the parental mosquitoes were fixed in the infected cell line. This indicates that the mosquito host was naturally superinfected with differentWolbachiastrains, whereas the infected cell line derived from these mosquitoes only contained one of the originalWolbachiastrains. The development of anin vitroculture system for this fastidious microorganism should facilitate molecular analysis of the reproduction distorting phenotypes it induces in natural arthropod hosts.