This month’s Genome Watch highlights how genome and transcriptome sequencing of newly recognized endosymbionts helps to attach genetic info to their protecting features.
Predators and pathogens exert sturdy selective pressures on mobile organisms to evolve and innovate their defence programs. Certainly, numerous mobile programs exist that defend on the chemical stage by activating the manufacturing of antibiotics and different secondary metabolites, on the bodily stage by way of motility and different morphological variations and on the genetic stage by intercellular trafficking of DNA info. As well as, microbial symbionts may additionally be acquired as a further layer of mobile armour. A mannequin of such a protecting symbiosis is the interplay between aphids and the intracellular bacterium Hamiltonella defensa. On this case, H. defensa protects its aphid host from parasitoid wasps by blocking the event of the invading wasp larvae. Genomic evaluation confirmed that H. defensa encodes the safety system in its 2.1 Mb genome, together with genes encoding toxins, effector proteins and two sort III secretion programs1. The retention of defence genes in a lowered genome signifies that host defence is crucial for endosymbiont health and divulges the ecological implications of protecting symbioses.
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