Garber AI, Garcia de la Filia Molina A, Vea IM, Mongue AJ, Ross L, McCutcheon JP. Retention of an Endosymbiont for the Production of a Single Molecule.
Genome Biol Evol 2024;
16:evae075. [PMID:
38577764 PMCID:
PMC11032189 DOI:
10.1093/gbe/evae075]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/17/2024] [Revised: 03/26/2024] [Accepted: 03/29/2024] [Indexed: 04/06/2024] Open
Abstract
Sap-feeding insects often maintain two or more nutritional endosymbionts that act in concert to produce compounds essential for insect survival. Many mealybugs have endosymbionts in a nested configuration: one or two bacterial species reside within the cytoplasm of another bacterium, and together, these bacteria have genomes that encode interdependent sets of genes needed to produce key nutritional molecules. Here, we show that the mealybug Pseudococcus viburni has three endosymbionts, one of which contributes only two unique genes that produce the host nutrition-related molecule chorismate. All three bacterial endosymbionts have tiny genomes, suggesting that they have been coevolving inside their insect host for millions of years.
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