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Blind killing of both male and female Drosophila embryos by a natural variant of the endosymbiotic bacterium Spiroplasma poulsonii
Author(s) -
Masson Florent,
CalderonCopete Sandra,
Schüpfer Fanny,
Vigneron Aurélien,
Rommelaere Samuel,
GarciaArraez Mario G.,
Paredes Juan C.,
Lemaitre Bruno
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
cellular microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.542
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1462-5822
pISSN - 1462-5814
DOI - 10.1111/cmi.13156
Subject(s) - spiroplasma , biology , drosophila melanogaster , genetics , phenotype , gene , embryo , strain (injury) , wolbachia , population , natural population growth , microbiology and biotechnology , bacteria , mollicutes , anatomy , demography , sociology
Spiroplasma poulsonii is a vertically transmitted endosymbiont of Drosophila melanogaster that causes male‐killing, that is the death of infected male embryos during embryogenesis. Here, we report a natural variant of S. poulsonii that is efficiently vertically transmitted yet does not selectively kill males, but kills rather a subset of all embryos regardless of their sex, a phenotype we call ‘blind‐killing’. We show that the natural plasmid of S. poulsonii has an altered structure: Spaid , the gene coding for the male‐killing toxin, is deleted in the blind‐killing strain, confirming its function as a male‐killing factor. Then we further investigate several hypotheses that could explain the sex‐independent toxicity of this new strain on host embryos. As the second non‐male‐killing variant isolated from a male‐killing original population, this new strain raises questions on how male‐killing is maintained or lost in fly populations. As a natural knock‐out of Spaid , which is unachievable yet by genetic engineering approaches, this variant also represents a valuable tool for further investigations on the male‐killing mechanism.

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