›› 2010, Vol. 53 ›› Issue (12): 1410-1418.

• RESEARCH PAPERS • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Identification and analysis of insertion sequences in the genome of Wolbachia infecting the rice water weevil, Lissorhoptrus oryzophilus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)

CHEN Shu-Juan, HE Yan, JIANG Ming-Xing, CHENG Jia-An   

  • Online:2011-01-17 Published:2010-12-20
  • Contact: JIANG Ming-Xing

Abstract:

The endosymbionts Wolbachia can cause various reproductive alterations to their hosts. Previous reports indicate that the mobile genetic elements, insertion sequences (ISs), are widely distributed in Wolbachia genomes and can extensively modify the plasticity, diversity and evolution of the bacterial genome. The rice water weevil, Lissorhoptrus oryzophilus Kuschel, is an alien insect pest of rice in Eastern Asia, which reproduces bisexually in its native regions but reproduces parthenogenetically in all of invaded areas. In this study, by using PCR we cloned two ISs, ISWosp4 and ISWosp6, from the Wolbachia infecting parthenogenetic rice water weevils collected from Tanghai, Hebei, China, and two ISs, ISWosp3 and ISWosp5, from the Wolbachia infecting sexual weevils collected from Texas, USA. Nucleotide sequence alignment suggested that ISWosp3 and ISWosp4 can be grouped to IS3 group in IS3 family, ISWosp5 to IS231 group in IS4 family, and ISWosp6 to IS1031 group in IS5 family. The ORF structure and deduced amino acid sequences of these ISs were analyzed, and ISWosp5 was speculated to have potential transposition activity. The findings can enrich our knowledge on the insertion sequences of IS3, IS4 and IS5 families, and can serve as a basis for future studies concerning interactions of Wolbachia and the rice water weevil.

Key words: Lissorhoptrus oryzophilus, reproductive mode, Wolbachia, insertion sequence, sequence analysis