ArticlePLoS biology2023
Wolbachia endosymbionts manipulate the self-renewal and differentiation of germline stem cells to reinforce fertility of their fruit fly host.
Article in PLoS biology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- CompleteMicrobiology resource announcements · 2026Article
- Endosymbionts interacting with sex-determining genes and processes.Current opinion in insect science · 2025Review
- Wolbachia-mediated reproductive manipulation in rice planthoppers.Crop health · 2025Review
- Stochastic Fluctuations of the Facultative EndosymbiontEcology and evolution · 2025Article
- Article
- Wolbachia-mediated reduction in the glutamate receptor mGluR promotes female promiscuity and bacterial spread.Cell reports · 2025Article
- Comparative Analysis of Drosophila Bam and Bgcn Sequences and Predicted Protein Structural Evolution.Journal of molecular evolution · 2025Article
- Article
- Article
- Mixed Wolbachia infections resolve rapidly during in vitro evolution.PLoS pathogens · 2024Article
- MixedbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Article
- Wolbachia infection at least partially rescues the fertility and ovary defects of several new Drosophila melanogaster bag of marbles protein-coding mutants.PLoS genetics · 2023Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The alphaproteobacterium Wolbachia pipientis infects arthropod and nematode species worldwide, making it a key target for host biological control. Wolbachia-driven host reproductive manipulations, such as cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), are credited for catapulting these intracellular bacteria to high frequencies in host populations. Positive, perhaps mutualistic, reproductive manipulations also increase infection frequencies, but are not well understood. Here, we identify molecular and cellular mechanisms by which Wolbachia influences the molecularly distinct processes of germline stem cell (GSC) self-renewal and differentiation. We demonstrate that wMel infection rescues the fertility of flies lacking the translational regulator mei-P26 and is sufficient to sustain infertile homozygous mei-P26-knockdown stocks indefinitely. Cytology revealed that wMel mitigates the impact of mei-P26 loss through restoring proper pMad, Bam, Sxl, and Orb expression. In Oregon R files with wild-type fertility, wMel infection elevates lifetime egg hatch rates. Exploring these phenotypes through dual-RNAseq quantification of eukaryotic and bacterial transcripts revealed that wMel infection rescues and offsets many gene expression changes induced by mei-P26 loss at the mRNA level. Overall, we show that wMel infection beneficially reinforces host fertility at mRNA, protein, and phenotypic levels, and these mechanisms may promote the emergence of mutualism and the breakdown of host reproductive manipulations.
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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.