| Wolbachia, a genus of maternally inherited bacteria that live inside the cells of many arthropods, have attracted much attention because of their ability to manipulate the reproductive biology of their hosts. Within arthropods, these manipulations include cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), parthenogenesis-induce (PI), male killing and feminization.Pteromalus puparum is a predominant pupal endoparasitoid of Pieris rapae and Papilio xuthus. Nasonia vitripennis is an ectoparasitoid of pupae of several families of higher Diptera.Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of a portion of a gene encoding a surface protein of Wolbachia (wsp) was used to detect the Wolbachia infection of the population of Pteromalus puparum and Nasonia vitripennis by universal primers of wsp gene and the specific primers for wsp genes of A and B Wolbachia supergroup. The PCR products were cloned, sequenced and analysed. The results demonstrated that both species were infected with strains of A and B Wolbachia, and wsp gene sequences of females and males from the same wasp were identical. By a pair of universal primers, a region of 540 bp of Wolbachia wsp gene were amplified from both of P. puparum females and males, likewise a region of 558 bp from N. vitripennis. The strains of Wolbachia, which infected P. puparum and N. vitripennis, were classified as the Pip group of B-Wolbachia and Uni group of A-Wolbachia, respectively. Both 548 bp region of A-Wolbachia were amplified from these two wasps, and the sequence percent identity was 99.8%. In contrast, the 424 bp and 439bp region of B-Wolbachia were respectively amplified from P. puparum and N. vitripennis, and their sequence percent identity was 87.5%.The coding sequences of the mature wsp gene product were amplified form Wolbachia of P. puparum and N. vitripennis using two specific primers respectively. The amplification products were each cloned into the expression vector pGEX-4T-2. Each recombinant WSP protein was separately... |
PDF Full Text Request