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A Genetic Test of the Mechanism of Wolbachia-Induced Cytoplasmic Incompatibility in Drosophila
Daven C. Presgravesaa Department of Biology, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627
Corresponding author: Daven C. Presgraves
Communicating editor: A. G. CLARK
| ABSTRACT |
|---|
Cytoplasmic bacteria of the genus Wolbachia are best known as the cause of cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI): many uninfected eggs fertilized by Wolbachia-modified sperm from infected males die as embryos. In contrast, eggs of infected females rescue modified sperm and develop normally. Although Wolbachia cause CI in at least five insect orders, the mechanism of CI remains poorly understood. Here I test whether the target of Wolbachia-induced sperm modification is the male pronucleus (e.g., DNA or pronuclear proteins) or some extranuclear factor from the sperm required for embryonic development (e.g., the paternal centrosome). I distinguish between these hypotheses by crossing gynogenetic Drosophila melanogaster females to infected males. Gynogenetic females produce diploid eggs whose normal development requires no male pronucleus but still depends on extranuclear paternal factors. I show that when gynogenetic females are crossed to infected males, uniparental progeny with maternally derived chromosomes result. This finding shows that Wolbachia impair the male pronucleus but no extranuclear component of the sperm.
WOLBACHIA comprises a group of maternally transmitted cytoplasmic bacteria that have a variety of reproductive effects in arthropods (![]()
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Although Wolbachia are abundant in the testes of infected males, they are not physically associated with mature sperm (![]()
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To cause CI, Wolbachia must modify nuclear and/or extranuclear components of the sperm. For example, modification of paternal chromosomeseither DNA or paternal DNA-packaging proteinsduring spermatogenesis might later disrupt the condensation cycle of the male pronucleus and/or karyogamy after fertilization. Alternatively, Wolbachia might modify extranuclear factors of sperm that are essential for embryonic development but unrelated to processing of the male pronucleus. There are several examples of such paternal factors. In most animals, for instance, the paternal centrosome is essential: centrosome elements of the sperm basal body must combine with those of the maternal centrosome to form the zygotic microtubule organizing center (MTOC). The MTOCs replicate and orchestrate assembly of the spindles needed for pronuclear apposition and segregation of chromosomes during mitosis (![]()
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In fact, cytological work in D. simulans has uncovered both abnormal paternal chromosome behavior and irregular centrosome-mediated microtubule processes in embryos from incompatible crosses (![]()
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Here I present genetic results that distinguish these possibilities, using a gynogenetic stock of D. melanogaster (![]()
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| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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Stocks:
Fly stocks were kindly provided by Drs. Y. Fuyama [w; gyn-2; gyn-3 and ms(3)K81], K. Fitch [ms(3)snky], S. O'Neill [Wolbachia-infected D. melanogaster Canton-S], A. Hoffmann [D. simulans Riverside (DSR)], and M. Turelli [D. simulans Watsonville (DSW)].
Infection status and CI:
Tetracycline curing of Wolbachia infections was carried out as described by ![]()
The infection status of all stocks was confirmed by PCR using primers specific for Wolbachia pipientis and the reaction conditions described in ![]()
Levels of CI were measured for both intraspecific and interspecific crosses at 25°. Single pairs of flies were set up in vials with standard medium for 24 hr. Females were then transferred to vials containing small spoons with grape juice-colored medium coated with a live yeast suspension (![]()
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].
Crosses:
The gynogenetic D. melanogaster stock, w; gyn-2; gyn-3, is described in detail by ![]()
I performed two versions of the experimental test, one using crosses between species and one using crosses within species. Because infected strains of D. melanogaster show only low levels of CI (e.g., ![]()
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I repeated the experiment within species. w; gyn-2; gyn-3 females were crossed to an infected strain of D. melanogaster created by introgressing Canton-S chromosomes into the infected cytoplasm of a y w stock (S. O'NEILL, personal communication). Because CI is weak in D. melanogaster, I tried to increase its expressivity by using a slightly different crossing design from that used above. I set up individual w; gyn-2; gyn-3 virgin females in vials with 35 1-day-old Canton-S virgin males and observed all crosses until copulation occurred, as CI levels decrease with male age (![]()
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When haploid w; gyn-2; gyn-3 eggs are fertilized by unmodified w+ sperm, red-eyed diploid daughters result (w+/w; Figure 1). When these eggs are fertilized by Wolbachia-modified sperm, CI results (Figure 1). However, ~24% of w; gyn-2; gyn-3 eggs are diploid (see Table 1 in ![]()

where %2N eggs = 24%, and the rate of sperm modification is estimated from corrected CI values (CIcorr), as explained above.
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| RESULTS AND DISCUSSION |
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Properties of the gyn-2; gyn-3 stock:
Before performing the key experiment, it is important to characterize the properties of gyn-2; gyn-3 reproduction and to characterize the infection and CI status of the stocks employed.
First, both haploid and diploid eggs of uninfected w; gyn-2; gyn-3 females use the nuclear and extranuclear contributions of unmodified w+ sperm: w; gyn-2; gyn-3 females crossed to uninfected Watsonville (DSW) males produce only red-eyed daughters (Table 1, line 1; see Table 2 for infection status). Because approximately one-third of w; gyn-2; gyn-3 eggs are diploid (![]()
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Next, two facts must be established: (1) diploid w; gyn-2; gyn-3 eggs do not require a paternal nuclear contribution; and (2) diploid w; gyn-2; gyn-3 eggs do require an extranuclear paternal contribution. I confirmed that w; gyn-2; gyn-3 females can reproduce gynogenetically by crossing them to homozygous ms(3)K81 males (![]()
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The ability of diploid w; gyn-2; gyn-3 eggs to use ms(3)K81 sperm shows that they do not need a nuclear contribution from males. But the fact that these eggs never develop without fertilization shows that they require something from the sperm. To test whether sperm penetration alone is sufficient to stimulate diploid w; gyn-2; gyn-3 egg development, I crossed w; gyn-2; gyn-3 females to D. melanogaster males homozygous for the paternal effect lethal mutation ms(3)snky. The plasma membrane of snky sperm fails to break down after penetration, trapping the nuclear and extranuclear paternal contributions within the membrane (![]()
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Infection status and CI:
Table 2 gives the infection status of all stocks. Table 2 also shows that Wolbachia infections were successfully cured by the tetracycline treatment.
Within-species levels of CI (Table 3) were similar to those in previous reports (e.g., ![]()
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The level of CI induced by DSR males between species (Table 3, line 10) was similar to that seen within species: uninfected D. melanogaster Oregon-R females mated to DSR males showed CIcorr = 87.0%. Uninfected D. melanogaster Oregon-R females mated to cured DSRT males showed egg hatch rates similar to compatible crosses within species (Table 3, line 11). Species crosses between D. melanogaster w; gyn-2; gyn-3 females and DSR males should therefore reflect normal DSR levels of CI.
Test of Wolbachia target:
We now turn to the critical experiment. The crosses above show that w; gyn-2; gyn-3 eggs use the paternal chromosomes and extranuclear factors of unmodified wild-type sperm (Table 1, line 1). They also show that diploid w; gyn-2; gyn-3 eggs do not require paternal chromosomes (Table 1, line 2) but do require extranuclear factors from the sperm (Table 1, line 4). Given this, we can make two predictions: If Wolbachia impair the paternal chromosomes only, uniparental diploid white-eyed daughters should appear when w; gyn-2; gyn-3 females are crossed to infected males. If, on the other hand, Wolbachia impair an essential extranuclear paternal factor, uniparental white-eyed daughters should not appear.
When w; gyn-2; gyn-3 females are crossed to infected DSR males, many uniparental daughters are produced: 52% of daughters are white-eyed (Table 4, line 1). This result is not an artifact of the species cross, as similar results are obtained in the within-species test: when w; gyn-2; gyn-3 females are crossed to infected Canton-S males, 16.1% white-eyed daughters appear (Table 4, line 2).
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As expected, control crosses of w; gyn-2; gyn-3 females to tetracycline-cured DSRT males failed to produce any white-eyed daughters (Table 4, line 3). Similarly, w; gyn-2; gyn-3 females crossed to cured D. melanogaster Canton-ST males produce only rare escaper (<1%) white-eyed daughters (Table 4, line 4). Tetracycline treatment of infected males thus cures Wolbachia infection and simultaneously eliminates production of uniparental progeny.
The production of uniparental daughters in crosses to infected males definitively shows that w; gyn-2; gyn-3 eggs successfully use the extranuclear components of Wolbachia-modified sperm but not the male pronucleus. Wolbachia do not, therefore, impair essential extranuclear components of the sperm.
It is worth noting that the levels of gynogenetic reproduction induced by DSR and Canton-S males are proportional to the levels of CI induced by males of these strains. This reflects the fact that both phenotypespercentage uniparental progeny and percentage of unhatched eggs (CI)are largely determined by the percentage of sperm modified. For example, given the 25.3% sperm modification rate of the Canton-S Wolbachia strain and the 24% diploid egg production of w; gyn-2; gyn-3 females, we expect ~7.5% white-eyed daughters (=
). We observe 16% white-eyed daughters (Table 4, line 2). Similarly, given the 79.987.0% sperm modification rate of the DSR strain, we expect 48.861.6% white-eyed daughters. We observe 52% (Table 4, line 1). Finally, for crosses involving males from uninfected strains, no sperm modification occurs and virtually no uniparental daughters are produced.
Concluding remarks:
The genetic tests performed here support the results of cytological studies in Drosophila and Nasonia suggesting that CI is caused by disruption of paternal chromosome processing in uninfected eggs (![]()
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The present results do, however, suffer from at least one limitation: they tell us little about the cellular and molecular mechanisms of CI. The questions of how the male pronucleus is modified and how Wolbachia in the egg rescue this modification still remain. As noted by KARR and colleagues (![]()
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| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
|---|
I thank Andrea "Texas" Betancourt, Seth Bordenstein, Jerry Coyne, John Jaenike, Corbin Jones, Tim Karr, Michael Turelli, Jack Werren, and especially Allen Orr for helpful discussion and comments. This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (GM-51932) and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to H. A. Orr and an Ernst Caspari fellowship to the author.
Manuscript received June 25, 1999; Accepted for publication November 10, 1999.
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