An evaluation was undertaken to determine the effectiveness of patient record plans which had been in use in two community pharmacies for periods of 6 and 9 years. A retrospective study of potential tetracycline interactions demonstrated that, numerically, the nonprescription drugs represented the greatest potential danger. Although in the past, non-prescription medications were not routinely recorded, it is concluded that both prescribed and non-prescribed drugs should be entered on patient record charts and screened for potential interactions. The routine recording and screening of patient allergies and disease states on the patient record plan was shown to be of value in several instances in one pharmacy. A comparison of drug sensitivities 'flagged' on pharmacy records and physician's records showed that the pharmacist often had on record more allergies than did the physician. Using the patient record plan to determine the theoretical time of the last dose of an antibiotic, two surveys were undertaken to determine if a written reinforcement of verbal instructions and patient involvement in a follow-up interview could help improve self-administration habits in ambulatory patients. It was found that more patients did, in fact, follow, their dosage regimen and fewer patients discontinued their course of therapy without justification. Seventeen steps were defined in a dispensing procedure used in one of the pharmacies operating with a patient record plan. These could be further divided into those functions which could be performed by a non-professional assistant and those which were to be done only by a pharmacist. The time required for the individual pharmacist to perform all 17 steps was compared to the time required for a (pharmacist and non-professional assistant) team to do the same functions. Pharmacist time per prescription appeared to be reduced 40 to 50% by the team approach. / Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of / Graduate

Invasive aspergillosis (IA) is associated with high mortality rates and can be difficult and expensive to treat with current drugs. The drugs used to treat IA are also associated with undesirable, and often severe, side-effects of the patient. The main causative agent of this disease is the opportunistic pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus. This study identifies genes which play a role in a fungal-specific type of programmed cell death (PCD) in A. fumigatus, known as heterokaryon incompatibility. The development of drugs specifically targeting the products of these genes could lead to fewer side-effects than those arising from currently available anti-fungal drugs. The drug amphotericin B is currently used to treat IA and has been shown to induce an apoptotic-like phenotype in A. fumigatus; however, the sterols targeted are present in both fungal and mammalian cell membranes. HI is a fungal-specific self/non-self recognition system that results in rapid compartmentalisation and cell death of hyphal fusion sites if the two fusing fungi are not genetically compatible. The HI system could be exploited as a novel drug target against invasive fungal pathogens through targeting a component of the molecular pathway to induce cell death. In contrast to current drugs, novel drugs could target HI components to induce PCD without affecting non-desirable targets that cause side-effects. The non-self recognition systems used by Neurospora crassa, Aspergillus Nidulans and Podospora anserina are the well characterised, and they each differ significantly in their modes of action. BLAST searches found 30 homologues of HI genes from other the systems of characterised species in A. fumigatus, with 8 containing the fungal-specific het domain. The first assay to determine whether disruption of het genes could affect HI was to observe the barrage phenotype between incompatible A. fumigatus individuals. However, there was no barrage visible as the leading edge of colonies stopped growing when in close proximity to another colony. Instead, nitrate non-utilising (Nit) A. fumigatus mutant strains were generated using chlorate and pair-wise crosses of 46 environmentally and clinically isolates on nitrate-containing media resulted in the formation of 16 viable heterokaryons. All of the heterokaryons fell into exclusive compatibility groups where no intergroup crossing was possible. Homologous recombination was used to disrupt five of the identified het domain genes with gene replacement cassettes, generated through fusion-PCR, in an akuB(KU80Delta) A. fumigatus strain. The mutant strains displayed both detrimental growth on standard agar growth media and reduced ability to recognise non-self strains. Full and partial heterokaryons were formed during intergroup pair-wise compatibility crosses using the mutants and strains that the akuB(KU80Delta) parent strain was previously incompatible with. This was followed with a non-bias approach of gene disruption using the Fusarium oxysporum impala160 transposable element in a Nit A. fumigatus mutant. Inducing transposon mutagenesis through exposure to low temperature generated a mutant library of spores in which the transposon had disrupted different open reading frames at different locations across the A. fumigatus genome. The mutant spore library was also screened for the ability to form viable intergroup heterokaryons with strains belonging to different compatibility groups. PCR recovery and DNA sequencing was able to identify the locus of impala160 in three isolates able to form viable heterokaryons. The sequences revealed the transposable element had disrupted the same gene, AFUA_2G05070, in each of the three isolates. This gene encodes an uncharacterised conserved hypothetical protein which may be a critical component for non-self recognition in A. fumigatus HI, and a potential target for novel anti-fungal drugs to induce PCD.

"November, 2002" / Bibliography: leaves 119-133 / x, 135, [123] leaves : plates (some col.) ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Horticulture, Viticulture and Oenology, 2003

Plasmid pBSSB1 is a 27 kb linear DNA with proteins attached at the 5? termini. It encodes the H: z66 flagellar antigen in Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S. Typhi) isolated from Indonesia. Together with the H: j or H: d flagellar antigen encoded by the host chromosome, pBSSB1 renders expression of the flagellar antigen biphasic in S. Typhi. Following the discovery of pBSSB1, initial bioinformatic analyses were carried out. However, no genetic analysis of replication and stability functions was conducted. Such studies form the basis of the present work. Plasmid pBSSB2, that contains a kanamycin cassette inserted at position 1295 bp of pBSSB1, was used in the present investigation. The first objective of the work was to develop a method of purification for the linear plasmid. Conventional plasmid extraction methods which had been used previously were found to produce a very poor yield of plasmid DNA. It was shown in the present study that a proteinase-K treatment was essential for the removal of the linear plasmid terminal proteins to avoid loss of the plasmid in the phenol-chloroform-isoamylalcohol treatment which removes cellular proteins from the plasmid DNA.The region containing the basic replicon of pBSSB2 was identified by screening for a region that was able to support replication in E. coli of a ColE1-like plasmid in a polA host (in which it would not normally replicate). This identified a 2831 bp fragment encompassing nucleotides 12820 to 15649 of pBSSB2. It was expected that this would encode an initiator of replication such as a Rep protein. However, mutagenesis studies showed that none of the annotated ORFs in this fragment was essential for replication. Candidate ORFs, not identified in the original annotation, have been suggested that remain to be tested as possible candidates for the rep encoding gene. The possibility of an alternative RNA primed initiation of replication has also been hypothesized. An adjacent region was found to exert strong incompatibility against pBSSB2, suggesting that it might encode a repressor of replication. The minimum region conferring incompatibility was 179 bp, encompassing nucleotides 10840 bp to 11018 bp of pBSSB2. A six base pair imperfect repeat, (G/T) (G/A) TGTT was found within this sequence. It is hypothesized that these imperfect repeats may function as iterons that titrate a Rep protein and regulate pBSSB2 replication. A 1023 bp region (nucleotides 7236 to 8258 of pBSSB2) was found to confer stability in E. coli upon an otherwise unstable circular plasmid. Mutational analysis showed that an annotated ORF within this region (ORF09) was required for plasmid stabilisation. When expressed independently from an expression vector ORF09 killed host cells. It is proposed that the stability function acts as a toxin-antitoxin system, although the antitoxin has not yet been identified. A candidate promoter for a putative countertranscript and two potential ORFs as candidates for encoding the antitoxin have been suggested for future work to identify the antitoxin. The preliminary functional characterization of pBSSB2 has contributed to our general understanding of the replication and stability functions of linear plasmids. However, further work will be required to achieve a complete understanding of the molecular basis of these functions in pBSSB2.

The sexual functions of the mating type gene (mt) of Neurospora crassa include specification of mating identity (Shear and Dodge, 1927) and perithecial maturation (Griffiths and DeLange, 1978; Staben and Yanofsky, 1990). The gene also acts as a vegetative incompatibility locus, so that A + a heterokaryons (Beadle and Coonradt, 1944) or A/a duplication strains (Newmeyer and Taylor, 1967) grow poorly or not at all. An intriguing question regarding the mating type gene is this: How does it control both the switch between somatic and meiotic events and heterokaryon incompatibility? Several research groups (Glass, et al., 1990; Staben and Yanofsky, 1990) are presently studying the sexual functions of the mating type genes. I present a study of the incompatibility function. Two experiments were performed. The first was a search for new suppressors of mating type-associated incompatibility, which resulted in the identification of seven new suppressors, none of which was allelic with the one known suppressor, tol. The second was the comparison of growth rates of a mating type mutant (fertile, heterokaryon compatible) in a mixed mating type heterokaryon and in a mixed mating type duplication to determine whether or not cytoplasmic incompatibility is separable from nuclear incompatibility. The results obtained suggest that the mating type mutant, am33, eliminates heterokaryon incompatibility without eliminating nuclear incompatibility. The search for suppressors was attempted in order to define more of the genes involved in A/a incompatibility. The analysis of heterokaryon versus nuclear incompatibility was done to investigate the cellular interactions involved in A/a incompatibility. / Science, Faculty of / Botany, Department of / Graduate

[EN] Self-incompatibility (SI) comprises a compendium of molecular intraspecific barriers, controlled by the S-locus, which enhances outcrossing and prevents inbreeding. Solanaceae, Plantaginaceae and Rosaceae exhibit the Gametophytic SI (GSI) type where specific recognition is controlled by S-RNases and S-locus F-box (SFB) proteins as the female and male S-determinants, respectively. On the other hand, unlinked S-locus genes known as modifier factors are also completely necessary for the mechanism to function. The GSI system seems to be basically preserved in Prunus but striking differences with Solanaceae and other Rosaceae have also been observed. On the basis of this background, this thesis is focused on the identification and characterization of modifiers involved in Prunus GSI to improve our understanding of the underlying mechanism. Previous works in apricot showed that an S-locus unlinked mutation expressed in pollen and located at the distal end of chr. 3 (M-locus) confers self-compatibility in the cv. 'Canino'. In this work, another self-compatible apricot cultivar, named 'Katy', was molecular and genetically analyzed. Similarly, an S-locus unlinked pollen-part mutation was found to cause the loss of self-incompatible response. A mapping strategy based on segregation distorted loci mapped 'Katy' mutation (referred as m-mutation) at the distal end of chr. 3, in a region overlapping with that identified for 'Canino' M-locus. A new screening was carried out to identify additional self-compatible mutants in apricot cultivar/accessions from germplasm banks. Through S-genotyping, three uncategorized S-alleles were recovered and two new mutations putatively conferring self-compatibility (SC) by affecting the male S-determinant SFB were detected. Additionally, M-genotyping showed that the same mutated m-haplotype was shared by 'Canino' and 'Katy', but also by 17 cultivars more from North-America and Western-Europe. A widely distributed haplotype M1-0 was proposed as the putative m-haplotype ancestor suggesting that it arose much later in time than SC-allele, a mutation in the S-locus also conferring SC in apricot. In order to identify this mutation, an integrative genetic, genomic and transcriptomic approach based on NGS data from 'Canino', 'Katy' and the self-incompatible apricot cultivar 'Goldrich' was carried out. This approach led to identify a unique polymorphism able to explain the self-compatible phenotype, a FaSt insertion type of 358-bp in coupling with the m-haplotype within a gene encoding a disulfide bond A-like oxidoreductase (named PaMDOr). PaMDOr was found to be differentially over expressed in mature anthers and the FaSt insertion is predicted to produce a truncated protein. These two findings also support PaMDOr as the pollen-part mutated modifier conferring SC in apricot. Furthermore, phylogenetic analyses suggest PaMDOr as a putative paralog of its contiguous gene (PaM-8), that emerged after the split of the Rosaceae and Solanaceae and which function became essential for the proper functioning of the GSI system in Prunus. Aimed to shed light on the differences and similarities between the S-RNase-based GSI systems in Rosaceae and Solanaceae, orthology relationships were analyzed for modifiers. Putative orthologs were found for NaTrxh, SBP1 and MdABCF in Prunus but a more complex evolutionary pattern was detected for 120K, NaStEP and NaPCCP. Thus, in spite of the differences, it can be hypothesized that part of the GSI modifier factors are shared by both families. As a whole, the multidisciplinary strategy developed in this thesis has allowed us to identify a novel modifier factor (PaMDOr) essential for the self-incompatible response in Prunus as the most significant contribution. In addition, new sources of SC have been detected in apricot and the orthology analysis helped to deepen our understanding on evolutionary aspects of the S-RNase-based GSI system exhibited by Prunus. / [ES] La autocompatibilidad (AI) comprende un conjunto de barreras moleculares intraespecíficas, controladas por el locus S, que favorecen la polinización cruzada y previenen de la endogamia. Solanáceas, Plantagináceas y Rosáceas presentan la llamada AI gametofítica (AIG) donde el reconocimiento específico está controlado por ARNasas-S y proteínas F-box del locus S (SFB) como los determinantes femenino y masculino, respectivamente. Por otra parte, genes no ligados al locus S, conocidos como factores modificadores, son también totalmente necesarios para la correcta regulación del mecanismo. El sistema AIG parece estar básicamente conservado en Prunus pero se han observado notables diferencias con Solanáceas y otras Rosáceas. Con estos antecedentes, el trabajo realizado en esta tesis se ha centrado en la identificación y caracterización de factores modificadores de la AIG en Prunus con el fin de mejorar nuestro conocimiento del mecanismo subyacente. Trabajos previos en albaricoquero mostraron la existencia de una mutación expresada en el polen y no ligada al locus S, que se localiza en el extremo distal del cr.3 (locus M) y que es capaz de conferir autocompatibilidad (AC) en el cultivar 'Canino'. En esta tesis, otro cultivar de albaricoquero autocompatible llamado 'Katy' fue genética y molecularmente analizado. De manera parecida a 'Canino', una mutación que afectaba a un factor no ligado al locus S expresado en el polen era el causante de la pérdida de la respuesta autoincompatible. La mutación en 'Katy' se consiguió mapear en el extremo distal del cr.3 (mutación m), una región que solapa con la identificada para 'Canino'. Una búsqueda para la identificación de nuevo mutantes autocompatibles en cultivares/accesiones de albaricoquero procedentes de bancos de germoplasma fue realizado. Por medio del genotipado del locus S, 3 alelos S no clasificados con anterioridad fueron hallados, mientras que 2 nuevas mutaciones autocompatibles que parecen haber afectado al determinante S masculino SFB fueron detectadas. Adicionalmente, el genotipado para el locus M mostró que el mismo haplotipo m mutado está compartido por 'Canino' y 'Katy' y 17 cultivares más del norte de América y el oeste de Europa. El haplotipo M1-0 ha sido propuesto como posible ancestro del haplotipo m, sugiriendo que éste surgió mucho más tarde que el alelo Sc, mutación del locus S que también confiere AC en albaricoquero. Con el objetivo de identificar esta mutación, un abordaje integral tanto a nivel genético como genómico y transcriptómico mediante datos NGS procedentes de 'Canino', 'Katy' y del cultivar de albaricoquero autoincompatible 'Goldrich' fue llevado a cabo. Esta aproximación sirvió para identificar un único polimorfismo capaz de explicar el fenotipo de AC, una inserción tipo FaSt de 358 pb en acoplamiento con el haplotipo m en un gen que codifica para una disulfide bond A-like oxidoreductase (PaMDOr). PaMDOr mostró estar diferencialmente sobre-expresado en anteras maduras, mientras que la inserción FaSt predice la formación de una proteína truncada. Estos dos hechos apoyan a PaMDOr como el factor modificador de la parte del polen que confiere AC en albaricoquero. Adicionalmente, análisis filogenéticos sugieren que PaMDOr podría ser un parálogo del gen contiguo (PaM-8) que surgió después de la división de Rosáceas y Solanáceas, cuya función ha llegado a ser esencial para el correcto funcionamiento del sistema en Prunus. A fin de arrojar cierta luz en las diferencias y similitudes entre los sistemas de AIG basado en ARNasas-S de Rosáceas y Solanáceas, las relaciones de ortología para factores modificadores fueron estudiadas. Ortólogos candidatos fueron encontrados para NaTrxh, SBP1 y MdABCF, sin embargo, un patrón evolutivo más complejo fue observado para NaStEP, 120K y NaPCCP. De modo que, a pesar de las diferencias, se puede hipotetizar que una parte de los modificadores de la AIG están comparti / [CAT] L'autocompatibilitat (AI) comprèn un conjunt de barreres moleculars intraespecífiques, controlades pel locus S, que afavorixen la pol·linització creuada i prevé de l'endogàmia. Solanàcies, Plantaginàcies i Rosàcies presenten l'anomenada AI gametofítica (AIG) on el reconeixement específic està controlat per ARNases-S i proteïnes F-box del locus S (SFB) com a determinants femení i masculí, respectivament. Per un altra banda, gens no lligats al locus S, coneguts com factors modificadors, són també totalment necessaris per a la correcta regulació del mecanisme. El sistema AIG pareix estar bàsicament conservat en Prunus, però s'han observat notables diferències amb Solanàcies i altres Rosàcies. Amb estos antecedents, el treball realitzat durant aquesta tesi se ha focalitzat en la identificació i caracterització de factors modificadors de l'AIG en Prunus a fi d millorar el nostre enteniment del mecanisme subjacent. Treballs previs a l'albercoquer mostraren l'existència d'una mutació expressada al pol·len no lligada al locus S, la qual està localitzada a l'extrem distal del cr.3 (locus M) i es capaç de conferir autocompatibilitat (AC) al cultivar 'Canino'. En aquest treball, un altre cultivar d'albercoquer autocompatible anomenat 'Katy' va ser genètica i molecularment analitzat. De manera pareguda a 'Canino', una mutació que afecta a un factor no lligat al locus S expressat al pol·len era la causa de la perduda de la resposta autoincompatible. La mutació a 'Katy' es va mapetjar a l'extrem distal del cr.3 (mutació m) en una regió solapant amb la identificada per a 'Canino'. Una recerca per a la identificació de nous mutants autocompatibles en cultivars i/o accessions d'albercoquer procedents de bancs de germoplasma va ser portada a terme. Mitjançant el genotipatge del locus S, 3 al·lels S no classificats amb anterioritat van ser trobats, mestres que dos noves mutacions AC que pareixen haver afectat al determinant S masculí SFB varen ser detectades. Amés, el genotipatge del locus M va mostrar que el mateix haplotip m mutat està compartit per 'Canino' i 'Katy', però també per 17 cultivars més del nord d'Amèrica i l'oest d'Europa. El haplotip M1-0, ampliamente distribuït, ha sigut proposat com a possible ancestre del haplotip m, sugerint que aquest va sorgir més tard que el al·lel Sc, una mutació al locus S que també conferix AC a l'albercoquer. Amb l'objectiu d'identificar aquesta mutació, un abordatge integral tant a nivell genètic com genòmic i transcriptòmic mitjançant diversos tipus de dades NGS provinents de 'Canino', 'Katy' i del cultivar d'albercoquer autoincompatible 'Goldrich' va ser portat terme. Aquesta aproximació va permetre identificar un únic polimorfisme capaç d'explicar el fenotip AC, es tracta d'una inserció de 358 pb en adaptament amb el haplotip m en un gen que codifica per a disulfide bond A-like oxidoreductase (PaMDOr). PaMDOr va mostrar estar diferencialment sobre-expressat en anteres madures, mentres que la inserció FaSt prediu la formació d'una proteïna truncada. Estos dos fets recolzen a PaMDOr com al factor modificador de la part del pol·len que conferix AC en albercoquer. A més a més, anàlisis filogenètics suggerixen que PaMDOr podria ser un paràlog del seu gen contigu (anomenat PaM-8) que va sorgir després de la divisió de Rosàcies i Solanàcies, en la qual la funció ha arribat a ser fonamental per al correcte funcionament del sistema d'AIG a Prunus. A fi de tirar certa llum en quant a les diferències i similituds entre els sistemes d'AIG basats en ARNases-S de Rosàcies i Solanàcies, les relacions d'ortologia per als factors modificadors va ser estudiat. Ortòlogs candidat van ser trobats per a NaTrxh, SBP1 i MdABCF, no obstant, un patró evolutiu més complex va ser observat per a NaSTeP, 120K i NaPCCP. De tal manera que, a pesar de les diferències, es pot plantejar la hipòtesi de que una part dels modificadors de l'AIG estan / Muñoz Sanz, JV. (2016). Crossability barriers in Prunus: the role of modifiers in the regulation of the gametophytic self-incompatibility system [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/68489 / TESIS

No description available.

Bioconductor is the second largest R software package repository that is primarily used for the analysis of genomic and biological data. With downloads exceeding millions in recent years, the widespread growth of the repository's adoption can be attributed to it's diverse selection of community-created packages, written in the programming language R, that allow statistical methodologies for analysis and modelling of data. However, as these packages evolve, their APIs go through changes that can break existing user code. Fixing these API breaking changes whenever a package is updated can be frustrating and time-consuming, especially since a large fraction of the user community are researchers who do not necessarily have software engineering background. In that context, we first present a tool that can detect syntactic API breaking changes between two released versions of a library written in R through static analysis of the package source code. This tool can be of utility to R package developers, so that they can more comprehensively report or handle the breaking changes in their releases, and to R package users, who want to be aware of the API differences that may exist between two releases before upgrading the libraries in their code. Through the use of this tool and manual inspection, we also conducted an empirical study of the breaking changes and backward incompatibility in Bioconductor packages. We studied the 100 most downloaded packages in the repository and found that 28% of all packages releases are backward incompatible. We also found that 55% of these breaking changes go undocumented and developers don't maintain semantic versioning for 22% of the releases. Finally, we manually inspected 10 library releases that consisted of breaking changes and found 2% of the API-s to affect 31 client projects. / Master of Science / Bioconductor is a software repository that consists of over 2000 software libraries. These libraries can provide users with reusable functions, or APIs, to perform statistical and graphical data analysis. The developers of these libraries will generally make timely updates to the library source code and the functions for various maintainability purposes. However, when clients install these library updates in their existing code, their code might not compile, run or behave the same way it used to anymore due to the changes made in the APIs of the libraries. Such a library release that consists of changes that can potentially break older code is considered to be backward incompatible. Without proper documentation from the library developer's side, fixing these issues can be time consuming as the client might have to manually look at the changes made in the library's source code. In order to tackle this issue, we first present a tool that can analyse two versions of a library and identify a subset of the breaking changes in the API. This can be helpful for both the users and the developers of the libraries to be aware of any breaking changes that exist in a new release. Afterwards, we conduct a study on the Bioconductor ecosystem to see how serious the problem of backward incompatibility really is by studying the top 100 most downloaded packages from the repository. We see that 28% of the releases across these 100 packages are backward incompatible. Since clients are likely to be using multiple libraries at once, this figure can potentially cause frequent issues in client code. We then go on to check how often developers maintain the correct release protocols when updating their libraries. These include versioning the releases in correct ways, so as to let the users be aware of what releases may be backward incompatible and documenting any breaking changes that occur in a NEWS file that users have access to. In that aspect, we find that 22% of the releases are not versioned correctly and roughly 55% of the breaking changes in the API are not documented. Finally, we investigate how frequently these breaking changes can actually affect client code. Here, we manually inspect 10 releases with a high number of a subset of the breaking changes and find 31 projects that implement these APIs, which would break upon a library update.

Wolbachia é uma bactéria intracelular obrigatória, de transmissão vertical, encontrada em tecidos reprodutivos de muitos artrópodes e nematóides. Ela manipula o ciclo reprodutivo de seus hospedeiros, induzindo partenogênese, feminização, morte de machos e incompatibilidade citoplasmática. No intuito de verificar a existência de alterações reprodutivas em mosquitos Culex quinquefasciatus infectados por Wolbachia (cepa B), tratamos com antibiótico uma colônia infectada e obtivemos uma colônia livre da infecção. Os mosquitos de nossas colônias apresentam o fenômeno de incompatibilidade citoplasmática. Paralelamente, a infecção causa redução do número de ovos e diminui a mortalidade de larvas e pupas, fazendo com que o número de adultos emergidos seja estatisticamente igual entre os animais infectados e não infectados. Além disso, observamos que mosquitos coletados na natureza, na cidade de São Paulo, Brasil, estão infectados pela mesma cepa da bactéria. / Wolbachia is an obligatory intracellular bacterium, maternally inherited, found in reproductive tissues of many arthropods and nematodes. It manipulates the reproductive behavior of their hosts, inducing parthenogenesis, feminization, male-killing and cytoplasmic incompatibility. In order to verify the existence of reproductive manipulation in Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia (B strain), an infected population was treated with antibiotic to obtain a Wolbachia free colony. The mosquitoes of our colonies present the cytoplasmic incompatibility phenomenon. In parallel, infection causes reduction in the number of eggs and decreases the mortality of larvae and pupae, making the number of emerged adults statistically equal between the infected and uninfected animals. Furthermore, we observed that wild mosquitoes collected in Sao Paulo city, Brazil, are infected by the same strain of bacteria.

Wolbachia é uma bactéria intracelular obrigatória, de transmissão vertical, encontrada em tecidos reprodutivos de muitos artrópodes e nematóides. Ela manipula o ciclo reprodutivo de seus hospedeiros, induzindo partenogênese, feminização, morte de machos e incompatibilidade citoplasmática. No intuito de verificar a existência de alterações reprodutivas em mosquitos Culex quinquefasciatus infectados por Wolbachia (cepa B), tratamos com antibiótico uma colônia infectada e obtivemos uma colônia livre da infecção. Os mosquitos de nossas colônias apresentam o fenômeno de incompatibilidade citoplasmática. Paralelamente, a infecção causa redução do número de ovos e diminui a mortalidade de larvas e pupas, fazendo com que o número de adultos emergidos seja estatisticamente igual entre os animais infectados e não infectados. Além disso, observamos que mosquitos coletados na natureza, na cidade de São Paulo, Brasil, estão infectados pela mesma cepa da bactéria. / Wolbachia is an obligatory intracellular bacterium, maternally inherited, found in reproductive tissues of many arthropods and nematodes. It manipulates the reproductive behavior of their hosts, inducing parthenogenesis, feminization, male-killing and cytoplasmic incompatibility. In order to verify the existence of reproductive manipulation in Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia (B strain), an infected population was treated with antibiotic to obtain a Wolbachia free colony. The mosquitoes of our colonies present the cytoplasmic incompatibility phenomenon. In parallel, infection causes reduction in the number of eggs and decreases the mortality of larvae and pupae, making the number of emerged adults statistically equal between the infected and uninfected animals. Furthermore, we observed that wild mosquitoes collected in Sao Paulo city, Brazil, are infected by the same strain of bacteria.