Affiliation:
1. Department of Biology, West Virginia University, 53 Campus Drive 5106 LSB, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA
2. Department of Biology, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA 23173, USA
Abstract
Host-associated microbial interactions may involve genome complementation, driving-enhanced communal efficiency and stability. The tsetse fly (Diptera: Glossinidae), the obligate vector of African trypanosomes (
Trypanosoma brucei
subspp.), harbours two enteric Gammaproteobacteria symbionts:
Wigglesworthia glossinidia
and
Sodalis glossinidius
. Host coevolution has streamlined the
Wigglesworthia
genome to complement the exclusively sanguivorous tsetse lifestyle. Comparative genomics reveal that the
Sodalis
genome contains the majority of
Wigglesworthia
genes. This significant genomic overlap calls into question why tsetse maintains the coresidence of both symbionts and, furthermore, how symbiont homeostasis is maintained. One of the few distinctions between the
Wigglesworthia
and
Sodalis
genomes lies in thiamine biosynthesis. While
Wigglesworthia
can synthesize thiamine,
Sodalis
lacks this capability but retains a thiamine ABC transporter (
tbp
A
thi
PQ) believed to salvage thiamine. This genetic complementation may represent the early convergence of metabolic pathways that may act to retain
Wigglesworthia
and evade species antagonism. We show that thiamine monophosphate, the specific thiamine derivative putatively synthesized by
Wigglesworthia
, impacts
Sodalis
thiamine transporter expression, proliferation and intracellular localization. A greater understanding of tsetse symbiont interactions may generate alternative control strategies for this significant medical and agricultural pest, while also providing insight into the evolution of microbial associations within hosts.
Subject
General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,General Environmental Science,General Immunology and Microbiology,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine
Cited by
81 articles.
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