Cloning and characterization of a gene encoding phagerelated tail protein (PrTP) of endosymbiont Wolbachia |
| |
Authors: | Lin Kang Lei Sun Hong Yu Weiguo Zhou Shouyuan Zhao Changben Li |
| |
Institution: | (1) Institute of Genetics, State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, Fudan University, 200433 Shanghai, China |
| |
Abstract: | 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. |
| |
Keywords: | Wolbachia CI prtp NLS HGT |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
| 点击此处可从《中国科学通报(英文版)》浏览原始摘要信息 |
| 点击此处可从《中国科学通报(英文版)》下载免费的PDF全文 |