灰飞虱共生菌Wolbachia引起的细胞质不亲和性

对我国６个地区和日本３个地区灰飞虱的Ｗｏｌｂａｈｉａ感染率，用ＰＣＲ技术进行了检测，结果表明中国的辽宁、北京、上海和云南的灰飞虱的Ｗｏｌｂａｃｈｉａ感染率均接近１００％；四川为５９．６％；而宁夏为０。各地区灰飞虱间的交配实验证明了在Ｗｏｌｂａｃｈｉａ引起的细胞质不亲和现象的存在，Ｗｏｌｂａｃｈｉａ１６ＳｒＤＮＡ的部分测序分析表明，上海、云南和日本出云的灰飞虱发的同为Ｗｏｌｂａｃｈｉａ ｐｉｐｉｅｎ     

Infectious parthenogenesis

Parthenogenesis-inducing Wolbachia bacteria are reproductive parasites that cause infected female wasps to produce daughters without mating. This manipulation of the host's reproduction enhances the transmission of Wolbachia to future generations because the bacteria are passed on vertically only from mothers to daughters. Males are dead ends for cytoplasmically inherited bacteria: they do not pass them on to their offspring. Vertical transmission of Wolbachia has been previously considered to be the main mode of transmission. Here we report frequent horizontal transmission from infected to uninfected wasp larvae sharing a common food source. The transferred Wolbachia are then vertically transmitted to the new host's offspring. This natural and unexpectedly frequent horizontal transfer of parthenogensis-inducing Wolbachia intraspecifically has important implications for the co-evolution of Wolbachia and their host.     

Wolbachia在灰飞虱体内的分布

灰飞虱（Laodelphax striatellus)能传播水稻条纹叶枯病,是我国主要的水稻害虫,有些灰飞虱体内含有细胞内共生菌－Wolbachia。Wolbachia是一种细胞质遗传的细胞内共生菌,这类细菌改变了宿主的生殖行为,引起细胞质不相容（CI）,雌性化及孤雌生殖等现象,导致带有Wolbachia的宿主具有生殖优势。采用PCR和Western杂交的方法分析Wolbachia的灰飞虱体内不同组织的分布状况,发现灰飞虱体内Wolbachia除存在于生殖组织外,还广泛分布在头、胸、腹、唾液腺、消化道等非生殖组织中。这种广泛的分布状态说明Wolbachia是在昆虫体内引入、表达与传播外源基因的良好媒介。     

灰飞虱Wolbachia群体生物学的遗传特性研究

Ｗｏｌｂａｃｈｉａ是存在于多种昆虫生殖器官的一类共生菌,它可能在宿 主群体中引起细菌质不亲和性而给宿 主带来生殖优势。对灰飞虱体内的Ｗｏｌｂａｃｈｉａｆｊｔｆｄｇｐｗ,ｖ ｇｍ ｐｇｃｆｍｗ ｑｎｎｋｕｄｙｊｒ ｄｏ ｎｕｉ     

Cloning and characterization of a gene encoding phage-related tail protein (PrTP) of endosymbiont Wolbachia

Wolbachia is an obligatory, maternally inherited intracellular bacterium, known to infect a wide range of arthropods. It has been implicated in causing cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), parthenogenesis, the feminization of genetic males and male-killing in different hosts. However, the molecular mechanisms by which this fastidious bacterium causes these reproductive abnormalities have not yet been determined. In this study, we report on the cloning and characterization of the gene encoding phage-related tail protein (PrTP) from Wolbachia in Drosophila melanogaster CantonS (wMelCS) and from Wolbachia in Drosophila melanogaster yw67c23 (wMel) by representational difference analysis (RDA) and ligation-mediated PCR (LM-PCR). The functionality of a bipartite nuclear localization signal sequence (NLS) of the gene was also successfully tested in Drosophila S2 cells. PrTP expression in various strains of Wolbachia was investigated. Our results suggest that PrTP may not induce CI directly. However, the existence of prtp provided direct evidence of phage-mediated horizontal gene transfer (HGT) that might play an important role in a variety of reproductive abnormalities of Wolbachia.     

Wolbachia 在中国稻田飞虱中的感染和传播

用ＰＣＲ方法检测了采集于不同地域的稻田飞虱共生菌Ｗｏｌｂａｃｈｉａ的感染,发现灰飞虱Ｌａｏｄｅｌｐｈａｘ ｓｔｒｉａｔｅｌｌｕｓ,褐飞虱Ｎｉｌｅｐａｒｖａｔａ ｌｕｇｅｎｓ,白背飞虱Ｓｏｇａｔｅｌｌａ ｆｕｒｃｉｆｅｒａ 为Ｗｏｌｂａｃｈｉａ所感染。克隆了编码Ｗｏｌｂａｃｈｉａ外膜蛋白质的ｗｓｐ基因并进行了序列测定,对ｗｓｐ的ＲＦＬＰ分析证实了这些飞虱为单一Ｗｏｌｂａｃｈｉａ感染,还发现一种能同时     

The wMel Wolbachia strain blocks dengue and invades caged Aedes aegypti populations

Dengue fever is the most important mosquito-borne viral disease of humans with more than 50 million cases estimated annually in more than 100 countries. Disturbingly, the geographic range of dengue is currently expanding and the severity of outbreaks is increasing. Control options for dengue are very limited and currently focus on reducing population abundance of the major mosquito vector, Aedes aegypti. These strategies are failing to reduce dengue incidence in tropical communities and there is an urgent need for effective alternatives. It has been proposed that endosymbiotic bacterial Wolbachia infections of insects might be used in novel strategies for dengue control. For example, the wMelPop-CLA Wolbachia strain reduces the lifespan of adult A. aegypti mosquitoes in stably transinfected lines. This life-shortening phenotype was predicted to reduce the potential for dengue transmission. The recent discovery that several Wolbachia infections, including wMelPop-CLA, can also directly influence the susceptibility of insects to infection with a range of insect and human pathogens has markedly changed the potential for Wolbachia infections to control human diseases. Here we describe the successful transinfection of A. aegypti with the avirulent wMel strain of Wolbachia, which induces the reproductive phenotype cytoplasmic incompatibility with minimal apparent fitness costs and high maternal transmission, providing optimal phenotypic effects for invasion. Under semi-field conditions, the wMel strain increased from an initial starting frequency of 0.65 to near fixation within a few generations, invading A. aegypti populations at an accelerated rate relative to trials with the wMelPop-CLA strain. We also show that wMel and wMelPop-CLA strains block transmission of dengue serotype 2 (DENV-2) in A. aegypti, forming the basis of a practical approach to dengue suppression.     

Infection of Wolbachia may improve the olfactory response of Drosophila

The endosymbiotic bacterium Wolbachia infects various insects and is primarily known for its ability to manipulate host reproduction.Recent investigations reveal that Wolbachia also affects the activity of somatic cells.We here demonstrated by trap method and T-maze that Wolbachia infection had signifi-cant impact on the olfactory response of Drosophila simulans.Wolbachia-infected flies took shorter time to enter the food trap and were more sensitive to odorant in T-maze than those uninfected controls.The t...     

Bidirectional incompatibility between conspecific populations of Drosophila simulans

Cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) describes the phenomenon whereby eggs fertilized by sperm from insects infected with a rickettsial endosymbiont fail to hatch. Unidirectional CI between conspecific populations of insects is a well documented phenomenon. Bidirectional CI has, however, only been described in mosquito populations, and recently between closely related species of parasitic wasps, where it is of interest as both an unusual form of reproductive isolation and as a potential means of insect population suppression. Here we report on the first known example of bidirectional CI between conspecific populations of Drosophila simulans. Further, we show that defects as early as the first cleavage division are associated with CI. This observation suggests that the cellular basis of CI involves disruption of processes before or during zygote formation and that CI arises from defects in the structure and/or function of the sperm during fertilization.     

Isolation and characterization of a potential transposable element from Wolbachia

Wolbachia are a group of Rickettsia-like bacteria which parasitize the cells of a wide range of anthropoid. These microorganisms are associated with the reproductive and developmental abnormalities io their hosts. To study the molecular mechanism underlying such phenomena, we analyzed the genomic difference between Wolbachia with different cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) phenotype using representational difference analysis method. A potential transposable element, which exists in the strong CI-inducing strain wRi, was isolated. This element was designated as Wolbachia insertion sequence element (WISE).     

Successful establishment of Wolbachia in Aedes populations to suppress dengue transmission

Genetic manipulations of insect populations for pest control have been advocated for some time, but there are few cases where manipulated individuals have been released in the field and no cases where they have successfully invaded target populations. Population transformation using the intracellular bacterium Wolbachia is particularly attractive because this maternally-inherited agent provides a powerful mechanism to invade natural populations through cytoplasmic incompatibility. When Wolbachia are introduced into mosquitoes, they interfere with pathogen transmission and influence key life history traits such as lifespan. Here we describe how the wMel Wolbachia infection, introduced into the dengue vector Aedes aegypti from Drosophila melanogaster, successfully invaded two natural A. aegypti populations in Australia, reaching near-fixation in a few months following releases of wMel-infected A. aegypti adults. Models with plausible parameter values indicate that Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes suffered relatively small fitness costs, leading to an unstable equilibrium frequency <30% that must be exceeded for invasion. These findings demonstrate that Wolbachia-based strategies can be deployed as a practical approach to dengue suppression with potential for area-wide implementation.     

Somatic stem cell niche tropism in Wolbachia

Wolbachia are intracellular bacteria found in the reproductive tissue of all major groups of arthropods. They are transmitted vertically from the female hosts to their offspring, in a pattern analogous to mitochondria inheritance. But Wolbachia phylogeny does not parallel that of the host, indicating that horizontal infectious transmission must also occur. Insect parasitoids are considered the most likely vectors, but the mechanism for horizontal transfer is largely unknown. Here we show that newly introduced Wolbachia cross several tissues and infect the germline of the adult Drosophila melanogaster female. Through investigation of bacterial migration patterns during the course of infection, we found that Wolbachia reach the germline through the somatic stem cell niche in the D. melanogaster germarium. In addition, our data suggest that Wolbachia are highly abundant in the somatic stem cell niche of long-term infected hosts, implying that this location may also contribute to efficient vertical transmission. This is, to our knowledge, the first report of an intracellular parasite displaying tropism for a stem cell niche.     

Rapid spread of an inherited incompatibility factor in California Drosophila

In Drosophila simulans in California, an inherited cytoplasmic incompatibility factor reduces egg hatch when infected males mate with uninfected females. The infection is spreading at a rate of more than 100 km per year; populations in which the infection was rare have become almost completely infected within three years. Analyses of the spread using estimates of selection in the field suggest dispersal distances far higher than those found by direct observation of flies. Hence, occasional long-distance dispersal, possibly coupled with local extinction and recolonization, may be important to the dynamics. Incompatibility factors that can readily spread through natural populations may be useful for population manipulation and important as a post-mating isolating mechanism.     

Tracking the evolution of insecticide resistance in the mosquito Culex pipiens.

The evolution of pesticide resistance provides some of the most striking examples of darwinian evolution occurring over a human life span. Identification of resistance alleles opens an outstanding framework in which to study the evolution of adaptive mutations from the beginning of pesticide application, the evolution of interactions between alleles (dominance) or between loci (epistasis). Here we show that resistance alleles can also be used as markers to dissect population processes at a microevolutionary scale. We have focused on the antagonistic roles of selection and migration involved in the dynamics of local adaptation with reference to allelic frequencies at two resistance loci in the mosquito Culex pipiens. We find that their frequencies follow an annual cycle of large amplitude (25%), and we precisely unravel the seasonal variation of migration and selection underlying this cycle. Our results provide a firm basis on which to devise an insecticide treatment strategy that will better control the evolution of resistance genes and the growth of mosquito populations.     

Molecular characterization of genome of a novel human T-cell leukaemia virus

A novel human retrovirus (HTLV-II) was previously found associated with a T-cell variant of hairy-cell leukaemia. Molecular cloning demonstrates that the complete provirus genome is 8.8 kilobase pairs in size and is transmissible to uninfected cells. Two types of infectious deleted provirus were also characterized. The sequences of HTLV-II are distinct from those of HTLV-I.     

Rapid switching to multiple antigenic and adhesive phenotypes in malaria.

Adhesion of parasitized erythrocytes to post-capillary venular endothelium or uninfected red cells is strongly implicated in the pathogenesis of severe Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Neoantigens at the infected red-cell surface adhere to a variety of host receptors, demonstrate serological diversity in field isolates and may also be a target of the host-protective immune response. Here we use sequential cloning of P. falciparum by micromanipulation to investigate the ability of a parasite to switch antigenic and cytoadherence phenotypes. Our data show that antigens at the parasitized cell surface undergo clonal variation in vitro in the absence of immune pressure at the rate of 2% per generation with concomitant modulations of the adhesive phenotype. A clone has the potential to switch at high frequency to a variety of antigenic and adhesive phenotypes, including a new type of cytoadherence behaviour, 'auto-agglutination' of infected erythrocytes. This rapid appearance of antigenic and functional heterogeneity has important implications for pathogenesis and acquired immunity.     

HIV病理动力学模型分析

考虑了CD4＋T细胞的全logistic自我繁殖,构造了具有治疗的HIV病理研究模型,研究了解的存在性、正性及稳定性.通过对每个感染T细胞释放的HIV病毒平均数量N的讨论,得到：如果NNcrit,有无病平衡点和地方病平衡点两个平衡点,但此时无病平衡点不稳定,地方病平衡点是局部渐近稳定的.最后通过构造Dulac-Bend...     

三带喙库蚊和致倦库蚊实验感染流行性乙型脑炎病毒的研究

目的：探讨流行性乙型脑炎病毒对我国三带喙库蚊和致倦库蚊的易感性。方法：用乙型脑炎病毒（Nak株）经口和胸腔接种感染实验室养殖的三带喙库蚊和致倦库蚊，应用空斑实验方法检测蚊虫体内的病毒存在情况和病毒滴度。结果：经口感染的两种库蚊，共计19组，有14组发生感染，空斑形成单位在3．18～4．7910gPFH/ml；在胸腔接种的两种库蚊中，致倦库蚊在10^0-10^-5稀释滴度时发生感染，最高PFU为6．59 logPFU／ml，三带喙库蚊在10^0-10^-4稀释滴度时发生感染，最PFU为5．74 logPFU／ml。结论：三带喙库蚊和致倦库蚊均对乙型脑炎病毒高度易感，胸腔接种的易感性高于经口感染。     

Ipr1 gene mediates innate immunity to tuberculosis

An estimated eight million people are infected each year with the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and more than two million die annually. Yet only about 10% of those infected develop tuberculosis. Genetic variation within host populations is known to be significant in humans and animals, but the nature of genetic control of host resistance to tuberculosis remains poorly understood. Previously we mapped a new genetic locus on mouse chromosome 1, designated sst1 (for supersusceptibility to tuberculosis 1). Here we show that this locus mediates innate immunity in sst1 congenic mouse strains and identify a candidate gene, Intracellular pathogen resistance 1 (Ipr1), within the sst1 locus. The Ipr1 gene is upregulated in the sst1 resistant macrophages after activation and infection, but it is not expressed in the sst1 susceptible macrophages. Expression of the Ipr1 transgene in the sst1 susceptible macrophages limits the multiplication not only of M. tuberculosis but also of Listeria monocytogenes and switches a cell death pathway of the infected macrophages from necrosis to apoptosis. Our data indicate that the Ipr1 gene product might have a previously undocumented function in integrating signals generated by intracellular pathogens with mechanisms controlling innate immunity, cell death and pathogenesis.     

Virulent strains of Toxoplasma gondii comprise a single clonal lineage.

The protozoan Toxoplasma gondii is a prevalent parasite in wild and domestic animals worldwide, being transmitted through the food chain by carnivorous feeding and scavenging. Toxoplasma normally divides asexually to yield a haploid form that can infect virtually any vertebrate but it also has a well defined sexual cycle that occurs exclusively in cats. Toxoplasma has become important as an often fatal opportunistic pathogen in patients with AIDS, although the 15-85% of adult human populations that are chronically infected with T. gondii are typically asymptomatic. Infections in immunocompromised hosts have variable outcomes. For example, only 30 to 50% of AIDS patients that are chronically infected with the parasite develop toxoplasmic encephalitis and only about half of acute maternal infections result in congenital disease of the newborn. T. gondii strains differ in their virulence in animals, but the extent to which different strains are related has not been determined. Here we analyse 28 strains from a variety of hosts on five continents and find that the ten virulent strains have an essentially identical genotype, whereas the nonvirulent strains are moderately polymorphic. These data strongly suggest that virulent strains of T. gondii originated from a single lineage which has remained genetically homogeneous despite being globally widespread, and despite the ability of this organism to reproduce sexually.