ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
Experimental replacement of an obligate insect symbiont.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 60 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
60 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 152 citations in OpenAlex.
- Impact of heat stress on the fitness outcomes of symbiotic infection in aphids: a meta-analysis.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Pooled it
- Reduction of Buchnera with rifampicin impairs the density-dependent induction of winged morph in pea aphid.Insect science · 2026Article
- Article
- Fidelity in co-diversified symbiosis.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Selection and transmission of the gut microbiome alone can shift mammalian behavior.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Conditional effects ofMicrobiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Cooperation between symbiotic partners through protein trafficking.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- What Can the Gut Microbiota of Animals Teach Us about the Relationship between Nutrition and Burden of Lifestyle Diseases?Nutrients · 2024Review
- Vertically inherited microbiota and environment modifying behaviours conceal genetic variation in dung beetle life history.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Host-specific co-evolution likely driven by diet in Buchnera aphidicola.BMC genomics · 2024Article
- Partial Correspondence between Host Plant-Related Differentiation and Symbiotic Bacterial Community in a Polyphagous Insect.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
- The nutritional dimension of facultative bacterial symbiosis in aphids: Current status and methodological considerations for future research.Current research in insect science · 2024Review
- Insect Microbial Symbionts: Ecology, Interactions, and Biological Significance.Microorganisms · 2023Review
- A rapidly spreading deleterious aphid endosymbiont that uses horizontal as well as vertical transmission.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Article
- Gene loss and symbiont switching during adaptation to the deep sea in a globally distributed symbiosis.The ISME journal · 2023Article
- First insights into theFrontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Impact of transgenerational host switch on gut bacterial assemblage in generalist pest,Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Still standing: The heat protection delivered by a facultative symbiont to its aphid host is resilient to repeated thermal stress.Current research in insect science · 2023Article
- MicroRNAs reshape the immunity of insects in response to bacterial infection.Frontiers in immunology · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Symbiosis, the close association of unrelated organisms, has been pivotal in biological diversification. In the obligate symbioses found in many insect hosts, organisms that were once independent are permanently and intimately associated, resulting in expanded ecological capabilities. The primary model for this kind of symbiosis is the association between the bacterium Buchnera and the pea aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum). A longstanding obstacle to efforts to illuminate genetic changes underlying obligate symbioses has been the inability to experimentally disrupt and reconstitute symbiont-host partnerships. Our experiments show that Buchnera can be experimentally transferred between aphid matrilines and, furthermore, that Buchnera replacement has a massive effect on host fitness. Using a recipient pea aphid matriline containing Buchnera that are heat sensitive because of an allele eliminating the heat shock response of a small chaperone, we reduced native Buchnera through heat exposure and introduced a genetically distinct Buchnera from another matriline, achieving complete replacement and stable inheritance. This transfer disrupted 100 million years (∼ 1 billion generations) of continuous maternal transmission of Buchnera in its host aphids. Furthermore, aphids with the Buchnera replacement enjoyed a dramatic increase in heat tolerance, directly demonstrating a strong effect of symbiont genotype on host ecology.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.