Wolbachia pathogen interactions in VBDs Flashcards
What kind of population regulation does wolbachia provide?
Population replacement (rather than suppression)
What are ways in which a population could be suppressed?
Entomopathogenic fungi, Sterile insects, insecticides.
How do we study endosymbionts and why?
Infected cell lines usually to provide an in vitro model as are not usually culturable.
When are gut microbiota acquired?
Usually maternally (mother –> progeny) from an early age e.g. larvae or eggs.
What is elizabethkingia? Where is it found? When is it present?
A genus of bacteria found in anopheles and aedes in both field caught and lab strains.
Present from L2 to adults.
What is the effect of enterobacter?
Thought to reduce vector competence by reducing development of plasmodium ookinetes and sporozoites.
What are the most common microbiota species vs which species are less common but tend to dominate?
Flaviobacteria less common but more likely to dominate the microbiome if present whereas Asaia and enterobacter more common but less likely to dominate.
How is it thought (still under debate) that wolbachia stops mosquitos transmitting parasites?
Induces ROS production that kills parasites.
Where are asaia bacteria located? Why is this good?
Midgut and salivary glands where they colocalise with plasmodium oocysts to have antipathogenic effects.
What is paratransgenesis?
Eliminate a pathogen from vector populations through transgenesis of a symbiont of the vector.
GM bacteria and put back into the vector so they can have antipathogenic gene expression that spreads throughout the population.
Where is wigglesworthia found? How is it passed on? What does it allow?
Endosymbiont of tsetse in the milk glands (allows transfer to larvae). Allows tsetse to survive on just blood.
How is wigglesworthia antitrypanosomal?
Activates pattern recognition receptor PGRP-LB (proteoglycan pattern recognition protein LB) which is antitrypanosomal.
What is sodalis? where is it found? How is it passed on?
Endosymbiont of tsetse.
In fat body and haemolymph.
Passed on in milk secretions.
Recombinant sodalis has some experiments done to show it works against some tryps.
Describe the lab experiment working on transgenic R prolixus endosymbionts.
Rhodococcus recombined using RNAi interference to inhibit gene expression.
Given back to R prolixus, it outcompetes natural population.
Outcome was an impact on fecundity and lifecycle.
What is the effect of mosquitos ingesting blood containing antibiotics (e.g. penicillin, streptomycin) on malaria transmission?
Increases transmission as vectorial capacity is augmented as the microbiome is no longer activating the immune response and being antimalarial
