Wolbachia infection at least partially rescues the fertility and ovary defects of several new Drosophila melanogaster bag of marbles protein-coding mutants.

The D. melanogaster protein coding gene bag of marbles (bam) plays a key role in early male and female reproduction by forming complexes with partner proteins to promote differentiation in gametogenesis. Like another germline gene, Sex lethal, bam genetically interacts with the endosymbiont Wolbachi...

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Main Authors: Miwa Wenzel, Charles F Aquadro
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2023-10-01
Series:PLoS Genetics
Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1011009&type=printable
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author Miwa Wenzel
Charles F Aquadro
author_facet Miwa Wenzel
Charles F Aquadro
author_sort Miwa Wenzel
collection DOAJ
description The D. melanogaster protein coding gene bag of marbles (bam) plays a key role in early male and female reproduction by forming complexes with partner proteins to promote differentiation in gametogenesis. Like another germline gene, Sex lethal, bam genetically interacts with the endosymbiont Wolbachia, as Wolbachia rescues the reduced fertility of a bam hypomorphic mutant. Here, we explored the specificity of the bam-Wolbachia interaction by generating 22 new bam mutants, with ten mutants displaying fertility defects. Nine of these mutants trend towards rescue by the wMel Wolbachia variant, with eight statistically significant at the fertility and/or cytological level. In some cases, fertility was increased a striking 20-fold. There is no specificity between the rescue and the known binding regions of bam, suggesting wMel does not interact with one singular bam partner to rescue the reproductive phenotype. We further tested if wMel interacts with bam in a non-specific way, by increasing bam transcript levels or acting upstream in germline stem cells. A fertility assessment of a bam RNAi knockdown mutant reveals that wMel rescue is specific to functionally mutant bam alleles and we find no obvious evidence of wMel interaction with germline stem cells in bam mutants.
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spelling doaj.art-801be6b918964dbab399462c7d5c6cd52024-02-14T05:32:09ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS Genetics1553-73901553-74042023-10-011910e101100910.1371/journal.pgen.1011009Wolbachia infection at least partially rescues the fertility and ovary defects of several new Drosophila melanogaster bag of marbles protein-coding mutants.Miwa WenzelCharles F AquadroThe D. melanogaster protein coding gene bag of marbles (bam) plays a key role in early male and female reproduction by forming complexes with partner proteins to promote differentiation in gametogenesis. Like another germline gene, Sex lethal, bam genetically interacts with the endosymbiont Wolbachia, as Wolbachia rescues the reduced fertility of a bam hypomorphic mutant. Here, we explored the specificity of the bam-Wolbachia interaction by generating 22 new bam mutants, with ten mutants displaying fertility defects. Nine of these mutants trend towards rescue by the wMel Wolbachia variant, with eight statistically significant at the fertility and/or cytological level. In some cases, fertility was increased a striking 20-fold. There is no specificity between the rescue and the known binding regions of bam, suggesting wMel does not interact with one singular bam partner to rescue the reproductive phenotype. We further tested if wMel interacts with bam in a non-specific way, by increasing bam transcript levels or acting upstream in germline stem cells. A fertility assessment of a bam RNAi knockdown mutant reveals that wMel rescue is specific to functionally mutant bam alleles and we find no obvious evidence of wMel interaction with germline stem cells in bam mutants.https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1011009&type=printable
spellingShingle Miwa Wenzel
Charles F Aquadro
Wolbachia infection at least partially rescues the fertility and ovary defects of several new Drosophila melanogaster bag of marbles protein-coding mutants.
PLoS Genetics
title Wolbachia infection at least partially rescues the fertility and ovary defects of several new Drosophila melanogaster bag of marbles protein-coding mutants.
title_full Wolbachia infection at least partially rescues the fertility and ovary defects of several new Drosophila melanogaster bag of marbles protein-coding mutants.
title_fullStr Wolbachia infection at least partially rescues the fertility and ovary defects of several new Drosophila melanogaster bag of marbles protein-coding mutants.
title_full_unstemmed Wolbachia infection at least partially rescues the fertility and ovary defects of several new Drosophila melanogaster bag of marbles protein-coding mutants.
title_short Wolbachia infection at least partially rescues the fertility and ovary defects of several new Drosophila melanogaster bag of marbles protein-coding mutants.
title_sort wolbachia infection at least partially rescues the fertility and ovary defects of several new drosophila melanogaster bag of marbles protein coding mutants
url https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1011009&type=printable
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AT charlesfaquadro wolbachiainfectionatleastpartiallyrescuesthefertilityandovarydefectsofseveralnewdrosophilamelanogasterbagofmarblesproteincodingmutants