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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, November 2008, p. 6963-6969, Vol. 74, No. 22
0099-2240/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.01038-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Host Adaptation of a Wolbachia Strain after Long-Term Serial Passage in Mosquito Cell Lines{triangledown}

Conor J. McMeniman,1 Amanda M. Lane,1,{dagger} Amy W. C. Fong,1 Denis A. Voronin,2,{ddagger} Iñaki Iturbe-Ormaetxe,1 Ryuichi Yamada,1 Elizabeth A. McGraw,1 and Scott L. O'Neill1*

School of Integrative Biology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia,1 Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, pr. Akademika Lavrenteva 10, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia2

Received 8 May 2008/ Accepted 22 September 2008

The horizontal transfer of the bacterium Wolbachia pipientis between invertebrate hosts hinges on the ability of Wolbachia to adapt to new intracellular environments. The experimental transfer of Wolbachia between distantly related host species often results in the loss of infection, presumably due to an inability of Wolbachia to adapt quickly to the new host. To examine the process of adaptation to a novel host, we transferred a life-shortening Wolbachia strain, wMelPop, from the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster into a cell line derived from the mosquito Aedes albopictus. After long-term serial passage in this cell line, we transferred the mosquito-adapted wMelPop into cell lines derived from two other mosquito species, Aedes aegypti and Anopheles gambiae. After a prolonged period of serial passage in mosquito cell lines, wMelPop was reintroduced into its native host, D. melanogaster, by embryonic microinjection. The cell line-adapted wMelPop strains were characterized by a loss of infectivity when reintroduced into the original host, grew to decreased densities, and had reduced abilities to cause life-shortening infection and cytoplasmic incompatibility compared to the original strain. We interpret these shifts in phenotype as evidence for genetic adaptation to the mosquito intracellular environment. The use of cell lines to preadapt Wolbachia to novel hosts is suggested as a possible strategy to improve the success of transinfection in novel target insect species.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: School of Integrative Biology, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia. Phone: 61 7 3365 2471. Fax: 61 7 3346 9213. E-mail: scott.oneill{at}uq.edu.au

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 3 October 2008.

{dagger} Present address: School of Biological Sciences A08, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.

{ddagger} Present address: Écologie Microbienne UMR CNRS 5557, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 69622 Villeurbanne, France.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, November 2008, p. 6963-6969, Vol. 74, No. 22
0099-2240/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.01038-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Jin, C., Ren, X., Rasgon, J. L. (2009). The Virulent Wolbachia Strain wMelPop Efficiently Establishes Somatic Infections in the Malaria Vector Anopheles gambiae. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 75: 3373-3376 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Evans, O., Caragata, E. P., McMeniman, C. J., Woolfit, M., Green, D. C., Williams, C. R., Franklin, C. E., O'Neill, S. L., McGraw, E. A. (2009). Increased locomotor activity and metabolism of Aedes aegypti infected with a life-shortening strain of Wolbachia pipientis. J. Exp. Biol. 212: 1436-1441 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • McMeniman, C. J., Lane, R. V., Cass, B. N., Fong, A. W.C., Sidhu, M., Wang, Y.-F., O'Neill, S. L. (2009). Stable Introduction of a Life-Shortening Wolbachia Infection into the Mosquito Aedes aegypti. Science 323: 141-144 [Abstract] [Full Text]  


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