Multiple infections within the same host are now understood to be common and important determinants of the outcomes of disease processes. Multiple infections are particularly important in insects, which are often infected by vertically transmitted symbionts that are passed from the mother to her offspring. In many cases, these symbionts have evolved to confer high levels of protection against co-infecting parasites, pathogens, or other natural enemies. Despite widespread examples of symbiont-mediated defense, there are key outstanding questions in the ecology and evolution of defensive symbiosis. These include the mechanisms through which protection is conferred, the specificity of defensive effects against different parasites and pathogens, and the overall roles of defensive and other symbioses in host communities and ecosystems. To address these questions, I used a model of defensive symbiosis in which the bacterium Spiroplasma protects the woodland fly Drosophila neotestacea from the nematode parasite Howardula aoronymphium. First, I conducted a series of experiments that included transcriptome sequencing of \textit{D. neotestacea} infected by Howardula and Spiroplasma to uncover the mechanistic basis of defense in this symbiosis. Through these experiments, I found evidence of a putative protein toxin encoded by Spiroplasma that might contribute to defense. Following this, we characterized the protein as a novel member of a class of toxins known as ribosome-inactivating proteins (RIPs). RIPs are important virulence factors in bacteria such as enterohemorrhagic E. coli; I exploited recent approaches for quantifying RIP activity to design sensitive assays that demonstrate that Howardula suffers a high degree of ribosome cleavage specific to RIP attack during Spiroplasma-mediated defense. This is among the first demonstrations of a mechanism of defense against a specific enemy in an insect defensive symbiosis. I next worked with collaborators to culture and characterize a novel trypanosomatid parasite of Drosophila that I uncovered during the above transcriptome sequencing. Trypanosomatids are protist parasites that are common in insects, and the causes of important human diseases that include Chagas disease and African sleeping sickness. Despite Drosophila's history as an important model of infection and immunity, little is known of its trypanosomatid parasites, and we describe this parasite as a new genus and species: Jaenimonas drosophilae, the first trypanosomatid formally described from a Drosophila host. We conduct a series of experiments to understand infection dynamics, immune responses and interactions with other parasites and symbionts within the host, beginning to establish Drosophila-Jaenimonas infections as a tractable model of trypanosomatid infection in insects. Finally, though examples of ecologically important defensive symbioses accumulate, an understanding of their overall roles in ecosystems is lacking. I close with a synthesis of the ways in which symbioses - defensive or otherwise - can affect ecosystem structure and function through their effects on food webs. This work will help to develop a conceptual framework to link reductionist findings on specific symbioses to larger scale processes. / Graduate

Recently, there has been growing awareness that many animals and plants harbour bacterial symbionts that help protect them against natural enemies. The mushroom-breeding fly Drosophila neotestacea is commonly infected with a virulent parasitic nematode, Howardula aoronymphium. Infections are severe, reducing adult survival and mating success, and until recently virtually all females were rendered sterile. We have discovered that D. neotestacea harbours a strain of the bacterial symbiont Spiroplasma that restores fertility to nematode-parasitized female flies. Spiroplasma appears to be both increasing in frequency and spreading westward across N. America. My thesis examines associations between flies, nematodes and Spiroplasma in British Columbia, which appears to lie at the edge of the range of advancing Spiroplasma infections. I identified Spiroplasma-infected flies in British Columbia for the first time. Sequencing a number of Spiroplasma genes, as well as fly mitochondrial DNA, strongly suggests that the defensive symbiont is spreading westward. Furthermore, high nematode infection rates in BC, as well as laboratory experiments demonstrating the ability of Spiroplasma to restore fertility to nematode-parasitized BC flies, suggest that there is a strong selective pressure for Spiroplasma to continue to spread in BC. I also examined the generality of Spiroplasma-mediated defense by exposing flies to a gram-negative bacterial pathogen, Pectobacterium carotovorum. Exposure dramatically reduced survival regardless of Spiroplasma infection, suggesting that Spiroplasma does not defend against gram-negative bacteria. / Graduate / 0718

No description available.

No description available.

Biological and molecular characteristics of the pathogenic mollicute, Spiroplasma penaei, isolated from the hemolymph of infected Pacific white shrimp, Penaeus vannamei, were investigated. The doubling times of a S. penaei were 6.13 h (2% NaCl) and 3.43 h (no salt) under aerobic conditions, and 6.63 h (2% NaCl) and 3.22 h (no salt) under anaerobic conditions. Small diffuse white colonies with granular centers, surrounded by small satellite colonies that appeared embedded in the agar matrix, were detected on solid M1D medium (2% Noble agar) under aerobic conditions at 28°C. The genome size of the S. penaei was 1778 Kb, as determined by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis using undigested DNA. Reduction of virulence of S. penaei was not detected in serial passage 24 and 76 isolates but passage 131 isolate was attenuated as indicated by the number of surviving shrimp and histological findings of challenged P. vannamei. Toxicity was not detected in supernatant fractions of M1D medium cultures of S. penaei isolates. The most predominant host responses to the S. penaei reference isolate and to serial passage isolates were hemocytic nodules and hemocytic infiltration observed in hematoxylin and eosin-stained histological sections. Transmission electron microscopy of the lymphoid organ of experimentally infected P. vannamei depicted S. penaei without cell wall and free in the cytoplasm of lymphoid organ cells. The lesions observed in histological sections were verified by in situ hybridization using a digoxigenin (DIG)-labeled probe specific to the spiralin gene of Spiroplasma spp. Evolutionary relationship trees, based on five partial DNA sequences of 16S rDNA, 23S rDNA, 5S rDNA, gyrB, rpoB genes and two complete DNA sequences of 16S-23S and 23S-5S ISR, were constructed using the distance-based Neighboring-Joining method with Kimura-2-parameter substitution model. The NJ trees based on all DNA sequences investigated in this study positioned S. penaei in the Citri-Poulsonii clade and corroborates the observations by other investigators using the 16S gene. Pairwise genetic distance calculation between sequences of spiroplasmas showed S. penaei to be closely related to S. insolitum and distantly related to Spiroplasma sp. SHRIMP from China.

No description available.

Insects and their natural enemies are engaged in a never-ending battle called the ‘co-evolutionary arms race.’ As a part of these contentious interactions, vulnerable insects evolve natural barriers that prevent successful attacks by their natural enemies. In response, natural enemies evolve strategies that overcome these barriers. Occasionally, microbial symbionts will also participate in these relationships by assisting their insect host in defense against natural enemies or by assisting the natural enemy in subduing its prey. Alternatively, microbial symbionts may become contenders themselves in the co-evolutionary arms race by becoming reproductive parasites of their hosts. To mediate successful outcomes in these relationships, microbial symbionts will often employ diverse protein toxins capable of manipulating and/or harming eukaryotic targets. In this dissertation, I study vertically transmitted Spiroplasma symbionts to address pressing questions about the evolution of symbiont protein toxins involved in insect manipulation and defense. In chapter II, I explore the genome of the first strain of Spiroplasma capable of inducing cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) - a form of reproductive parasitism. I use bioinformatic techniques to look for potential protein effectors of CI and demonstrate that Spiroplasma evolved this intricate form of reproduction manipulation independent of other symbionts. In chapter III, I use bioinformatic approaches to characterize the expansion and diversification of multiple protein toxin families present in Spiroplasma. I identify dynamic evolutionary processes responsible for expanding and diversifying these toxin families and uncover a striking genus-wide association between protein toxin-associated domains in Spiroplasma and Spiroplasma transmission method. In chapter IV, I explore how protein expansion and diversification have influenced toxin function. Through molecular experiments with diverse Spiroplasma ribosome-inactivating protein (RIP) toxins, I implicate neofunctionalization as a common outcome in RIP toxin expansion. Lastly, in chapter V, I focus on the interactions between host and parasite by describing the first parasitoid wasp known to attack the adult stage of Drosophila hosts. This work introduces a new Drosophila-wasp study model for future novel studies into parasitoid-host interactions. Overall, this dissertation addresses broad questions about the evolution and origins of host, symbiont, and natural enemy interactions, and provides new tools and methods for future investigations.

Les plasmides pSci de Spiroplasma citri GII3 possèdent une structure mosaïque avec de nombreuses régions conservées. Des dérivés du plasmide pSci2 ont été produits par délétions successives et leur capacité de réplication a été évaluée. Le plus petit réplicon obtenu ne contient plus qu’une CDS (pE) et ses régions flanquantes. L’inactivation dans un vecteur navette du gène pE est suffisante pour abolir la réplication de ce plasmide dans S. citri. Des dérivés des pSci ont été introduits efficacement dans S. kunkelii et S. phoeniceum, deux spiroplasmes phytopathogènes pour lesquels aucun outil génétique n’était disponible jusqu’à présent. La stabilité des dérivés des pSci a également été évaluée par leur capacité à persister en l’absence de pression de sélection. L’instabilité ségrégationnelle des plasmides dans lesquels soj a été délété ou inactivé indique que la protéine de partition Soj/ParA est essentielle au maintien des plasmides pSci. L’incompatibilité sélective entre un plasmide pSci et ses dérivés a été exploitée pour produire une collection de souches possédant des profils plasmidiques différents. L’analyse des phénotypes d’acquisition et de transmission de plusieurs de ces mutants suggère que la CDS traG portée par le pSci6 est essentielle à la transmission de S. citri GII3. En revanche, les plasmides pSci1-5, codant les protéines adhésine-like ScARPs, ne sont indispensables ni à l’acquisition ni à la transmission. Dans le cadre de ce travail, plusieurs outils génétiques ont été adaptés aux mollicutes. Le promoteur Pxyl/tetO2 a été utilisé pour contrôler l’expression du gène de la spiraline chez S. citri et M. agalactiae. Enfin, un système de linéarisation de plasmide in vivo basé sur l’expression de l’endonucléase I-SceI a été utilisé pour l’élimination de plasmides pSci chez S. citri. / Plasmids pSci from Spiroplasma citri GII3 display a mosaic gene organization with highly conserved regions. Through successive deletions, various pSci2 derivatives were constructed and assessed for their ability to replicate. The smallest functional replicon consists of one single CDS (pE) and its flanking, intergenic regions. Furthermore, shuttle (S. citri/E. coli) plasmids, in which the pE gene was disrupted, failed to replicate in S. citri, suggesting that PE is the replication protein. S. citri plasmids were efficiently introduced into S. kunkelii and S. phoeniceum, two plant pathogenic spiroplasmas, the transformation of which had never been described before. Studying stability of various pSci-derived plasmids in the absence of selection pressure strongly suggests the occurrence of an active partition system involving the soj-like gene. Selective incompatibility between a given pSci plasmid and its derivatives was used to remove plasmids from the wild-type strain. As a result, a collection of S. citri GII3 mutants differing in their plasmid contents was produced. Experimental transmission of these mutants through injection to or ingestion by the leafhopper vector will provide new insights into the role of plasmid encoded determinants in the biology of S. citri. First data indicated that pSci6 traG is required for insect transmission of S. citri GII3. In contrast, pSci1-5, encoding adhesin-like proteins, are not essential for both transmission and acquisition. In the frame of this work, new genetic tools have been adapted for use in mollicutes. The tetracycline inducible promoter, Pxyl/tetO2, was used to control spiraline gene in S. citri and M. agalactiae. Also, an in vivo linearization system based on the expression of the I-SceI-endonuclease was used to remove pSci plasmids from S. citri.

La compartimentation est un aspect fondamental dans la compréhension de l’apparition de la vie sur terre mais aussi dans l’élaboration de cellules minimales. Les coacervats sont capables de séquestrer de grandes quantités de molécules par diffusion depuis le milieu extérieur mais ne permettent pas d’encapsuler ces molécules à cause de l’absence de barrière physique entre le milieu intérieur et extérieur. Les vésicules quant à elles, ne permettent pas de séquestrer de grandes quantités de molécules à cause de la bicouche membranaire qui empêche la diffusion des molécules depuis le milieu extérieur. Nous avons développé une nouvelle méthode pour encapsuler des biomolécules basées sur une transition de coacervats à vésicules. Notre système basé sur des acides gras saturés à longues chaînes, peut former des coacervats pour séquestrer des biomolécules puis des vésicules en diminuant le pH pour encapsuler les molécules préalablement séquestrées. Les résultats montrent des taux d’encapsulation supérieurs à ceux obtenus par les méthodes d’encapsulation basées sur l’hydratation de films lipidiques. L’encapsulation d’enzymes ainsi que des substrats de la réaction dans les vésicules ont permis de montrer l’accomplissement de réactions enzymatiques dans ces compartiments de manière beaucoup plus rapide qu’en milieu dilué permettant de générer un bioréacteur efficace. La synthèse de protéines ainsi que l’accomplissement de voies métaboliques n’ont pas été clairement mises en évidence dans les vésicules et constituent un élément décisif dans l’élaboration d’un nouveau modèle de cellule minimale. / Compartmentalization is of importance for our understanding of the emergence of life on earth but also for the development and design of minimal cells. Coacervation phenomenon allows spontaneous sequestration by molecular diffusion from aqueous medium but do not allow encapsulation of molecule inside. On the contrary, vesicular systems do not allow spontaneous encapsulation of molecules inside. Here we introduce a model built from saturated long chain fatty acids. This system can form both membranous vesicles and membrane free coacervated droplets that result from clouding by decreasing ph. We have shown that a large amount of proteins is encapsulated into vesicles after pre-crowding into coacervated. Encapsulation of enzyme in vesicles allow to increase the reaction rate compared to the reaction rate in diluted medium. Synthesis of proteins by cell-free system and metabolic reactions with proteins of mollicutes have not clearly been shown but they represent an essential element in the development of a minimal cell.

Spiroplasma citri est un mollicute phytopathogène transmis de plante à plante par des cicadelles du genre Circulifer selon un mode persistant circulant-multipliant. Les franchissements de l’épithélium intestinal et des glandes salivaires sont basés sur un mécanisme d’endocytose/exocytose. Ce processus d’invasion met en jeu, au sein de complexes protéiques, des protéines bactériennes spécifiques qui reconnaissent des motifs déterminés présents à la surface des cellules eucaryotes. La recherche de protéines de l’insecte vecteur interagissant avec S. citri a notamment conduit à l’identification de l’actine. Cette interaction a pu être confirmée à la fois in vitro et in vivo. L’interaction de l’actine avec son partenaire chez S. citri, qui s’est avéré être la phosphoglycérate kinase (PGK), est impliquée dans l’internalisation du spiroplasme dans les cellules de l’insecte. La région minimale de liaison à l’actine de la PGK a également été déterminée.La réalisation d’un mutant de S. citri dépourvu de PGK a été entreprise avec le plasmide navette pGOT mais n’a pas permis la sélection de spiroplasmes mutés dans ce gène essentiel. Néanmoins, la recherche de l’évènement de recombinaison chez les clones obtenus a permis de mettre en évidence la mutation de deux gènes chez ces derniers.L'ensemble des protéines impliquées dans la transmission du spiroplasme, identifiées au préalable chez ce dernier, n’étant pas essentielle au cours de ce processus, une étude préliminaire des complexes multi-protéiques contenant plusieurs de ces protéines a été réalisée. L’identification de complexes impliquant à la fois la PGK, la P32 et les ScARPs pourrait permettre de mieux comprendre les mécanismes régissant la vection de S. citri par son insecte. / Spiroplasma citri is a phytopathogenic mollicute transmitted from plant to plant by leafhoppers of the genus Circulifer in a persistent and propagative manner on condition to cross the intestinal and salivary glands barriers of the insect. These crossings are based on a endocytosis/exocytosis mechanism which involves bacterial protein complexes in order to recognize specific patterns on the surface of eukaryotic cells.Specific molecular interactions between S. citri proteins and those of C. haematoceps were investigated using far Western technology and had notably led to the identification of actin. This interaction has been confirmed both in vitro and in vivo. The interaction of actin with his partner in S. citri, which has been identified as the phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK), is involved in the internalization of spiroplasma into the insect cells. The minimal actin-binding region of PGK was also determined.The realization of a S. citri PGK mutant was carried out using the shuttle plasmid pGOT but the selection of spiroplasmas mutated in this essential gene failed. Nevertheless, findings in the localization of recombination events in S. citri chromosome, allowed us to identify mutations in two genes that could be tested in our experimental transmission system.The set of proteins involved in the spiroplasmal transmission, previously identified as non essential proteins in the invasion process, prompted us to study the role of multi-protein complexes containing several of these proteins. Identification of complexes involving both the PGK, the P32 and ScARPs should enable us to better understand mechanisms governing the transmission of S. citri by its insect.