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Seasonal Changes in the Endosymbiotic Consortia of Aphids from the Genus Cinara - PubMed

  • ️Fri Jan 01 2016

Seasonal Changes in the Endosymbiotic Consortia of Aphids from the Genus Cinara

Vanesa Martínez-Díaz et al. Microbes Environ. 2016.

Abstract

Buchnera aphidicola is the primary endosymbiont of aphids with which it maintains an obligate mutualistic symbiotic relationship. Insects also maintain facultative symbiotic relationships with secondary symbionts, and Serratia symbiotica is the most common in aphids. The presence of both symbionts in aphids of the subfamily Lachninae has been widely studied by our group. We examined two closely related aphids, Cinara tujafilina and C. cedri in the present study. Even though both B. aphidicola strains have similar genome sizes and gene contents, the genomes of the two S. symbiotica strains were markedly different. The SCc strain has the smallest genome known for this species, while SCt possesses a larger genome in an intermediate stage between the facultative S. symbiotica of Acyrthosiphon pisum (SAp) and the co-obligate S. symbiotica SCc.Aphids are vulnerable to high temperatures. Previous studies indicated that S. symbiotica SAp confers resistance to heat-shock stress. In order to clarify whether S. symbiotica strains from genus Cinara also play a role in heat stress protection, we performed a quantitative determination of the consortium Buchnera/Serratia from two geographically close populations, each of which belonged to the Cinara species examined, over two years in natural environments. We found no variation in the consortium from our C. cedri population, but a positive correlation between both endosymbiont densities and average daily temperatures in the C. tujafilina population. Even though S. symbiotica SCt may retain some protective role against heat stress, this does not appear to be due to the release of protective metabolites by cell lysis.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1

Maximum (upper line) and minimum (lower line) daily temperatures recorded in Valencia airport (Manises, Valencia) meteorological stations by AEMET in 2012 and 2013. The days in which the aphid samples were taken are indicated with dots. (A) C. cedri. (B) C. tujafilina. Black dots indicate that aphids were collected, but the samples were not used for further analyses.

Fig. 2
Fig. 2

Relative quantification of B. aphidicola and S. symbiotica from C. cedri and C. tujafilina in 2012 and 2013. The x-axis indicates the time (d, Tables 2 and 3), the y-axis indicates the percentage of each endosymbiont (B. aphidicola in black, S. symbiotica in grey).

Fig. 3
Fig. 3

Relationship between the ratio ‘groEL copy number/atpD copy number’ and daily average temperature for C. tujafilina and C. cedri populations over two years under study.

Fig. 4
Fig. 4

Linear regression between the gene copy number (groEL and atpD) and daily average temperature for two aphid species populations under study over two years. (A) C. cedri. (B) C. tujafilina.

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