ArticlePLoS genetics2009
Evolutionary convergence and nitrogen metabolism in Blattabacterium strain Bge, primary endosymbiont of the cockroach Blattella germanica.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 75 papers.
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Who cites it
75 citing papers in PubMed, 143 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Cockroach bacteriocytes migrate into the ovaries for vertical transmission of the bacterial endosymbiont Blattabacterium.Zoological letters · 2026Article
- Frequent and asymmetric cell division in endosymbiotic bacteria of cockroaches.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2024Article
- Comparative Transcriptomics of Fat Bodies between Symbiotic and Quasi-Aposymbiotic Adult Females ofInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
- Multiomics data integration, limitations, and prospects to reveal the metabolic activity of the coral holobiont.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2024Review
- Functional similarity, despite taxonomical divergence in the millipede gut microbiota, points to a common trophic strategy.Microbiome · 2024Article
- Gut Microbiota Is Not Essential for Survival and Development inLife (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Cuticle supplementation and nitrogen recycling by a dual bacterial symbiosis in a family of xylophagous beetles.The ISME journal · 2023Article
- Nuclear genetic diversity of head lice sheds light on human dispersal around the world.PloS one · 2023Article
- Coevolution of Metabolic Pathways in Blattodea and TheirMicrobiology spectrum · 2022Article
- Identification of the Gene Repertoire of the IMD Pathway and Expression of Antimicrobial Peptide Genes in Several Tissues and Hemolymph of the CockroachInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Of Cockroaches and Symbionts: Recent Advances in the Characterization of the Relationship betweenLife (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Differential microbial responses to antibiotic treatments by insecticide-resistant and susceptible cockroach strains (Blattella germanica L.).Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Enhanced Mutation Rate, Relaxed Selection, and the "Domino Effect" are associated with Gene Loss in Blattabacterium, A Cockroach Endosymbiont.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Interkingdom Gut Microbiome and Resistome of the CockroachmSystems · 2021Article
- Isolation of the Buchnera aphidicola flagellum basal body complexes from the Buchnera membrane.PloS one · 2021Article
- Assessing Biosynthetic Gene Cluster Diversity of Specialized Metabolites in the Conserved Gut Symbionts of Herbivorous Turtle Ants.Frontiers in microbiology · 2021Article
- Blattella germanica displays a large arsenal of antimicrobial peptide genes.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- gNOMO: a multi-omics pipeline for integrated host and microbiome analysis of non-model organisms.NAR genomics and bioinformatics · 2020Article
- Genome Sequence of aMicrobiology resource announcements · 2020Article
15 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Bacterial endosymbionts of insects play a central role in upgrading the diet of their hosts. In certain cases, such as aphids and tsetse flies, endosymbionts complement the metabolic capacity of hosts living on nutrient-deficient diets, while the bacteria harbored by omnivorous carpenter ants are involved in nitrogen recycling. In this study, we describe the genome sequence and inferred metabolism of Blattabacterium strain Bge, the primary Flavobacteria endosymbiont of the omnivorous German cockroach Blattella germanica. Through comparative genomics with other insect endosymbionts and free-living Flavobacteria we reveal that Blattabacterium strain Bge shares the same distribution of functional gene categories only with Blochmannia strains, the primary Gamma-Proteobacteria endosymbiont of carpenter ants. This is a remarkable example of evolutionary convergence during the symbiotic process, involving very distant phylogenetic bacterial taxa within hosts feeding on similar diets. Despite this similarity, different nitrogen economy strategies have emerged in each case. Both bacterial endosymbionts code for urease but display different metabolic functions: Blochmannia strains produce ammonia from dietary urea and then use it as a source of nitrogen, whereas Blattabacterium strain Bge codes for the complete urea cycle that, in combination with urease, produces ammonia as an end product. Not only does the cockroach endosymbiont play an essential role in nutrient supply to the host, but also in the catabolic use of amino acids and nitrogen excretion, as strongly suggested by the stoichiometric analysis of the inferred metabolic network. Here, we explain the metabolic reasons underlying the enigmatic return of cockroaches to the ancestral ammonotelic state.
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