Bacterial leaf symbiosis in angiosperms: host specificity without co-speciation.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Lemaire B
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3168474 | biostudies-literature | 2011
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:Host-parasite associations are shaped by coevolutionary dynamics. One example is the complex fungus-growing ant-microbe symbiosis, which includes ancient host-parasite coevolution. Fungus-growing ants and the fungi they cultivate for food have an antagonistic symbiosis with Escovopsis, a specialized microfungus that infects the ants' fungus gardens. The evolutionary histories of the ant, cultivar and Escovopsis are highly congruent at the deepest phylogenetic levels, with specific parasite lineages exclusively associating with corresponding groups of ants and cultivar. Here, we examine host-parasite specificity at finer phylogenetic levels, within the most derived clade of fungus-growing ants, the leaf-cutters (Atta spp. and Acromyrmex spp.). Our molecular phylogeny of Escovopsis isolates from the leaf-cutter ant-microbe symbiosis confirms specificity at the broad phylogenetic level, but reveals frequent host-switching events between species and genera of leaf-cutter ants. Escovopsis strains isolated from Acromyrmex and Atta gardens occur together in the same clades, and very closely related strains can even infect the gardens of both ant genera. Experimental evidence supports low host-parasite specificity, with phylogenetically diverse strains of Escovopsis being capable of overgrowing all leaf-cutter cultivars examined. Thus, our findings indicate that this host-pathogen association is shaped by the farming ants having to protect their cultivated fungus from phylogenetically diverse Escovopsis garden pathogens.
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Project description:Species of Mycosphaerella and Teratosphaeria represent important foliicolous pathogens of Proteaceae. Presently approximately 40 members of these genera (incl. anamorphs) have been recorded from Proteaceae, though the majority are not known from culture, and have never been subjected to DNA sequence analysis. During the course of this study, epitypes were designated for several important species, namely Batcheloromyces leucadendri, B. proteae, Catenulostroma macowanii, Mycosphaerella marksii, Teratosphaeria bellula, T. jonkershoekensis, T. parva, and T. proteae-arboreae. Several species were also newly described, namely Batcheloromyces sedgefieldii, Catenulostroma wingfieldii, Dissoconium proteae, Teratosphaeria persoonii, T. knoxdavesii, and T. marasasii. Although accepted as being highly host specific, some species were shown to have wider host ranges, such as M. communis (Eucalyptus, Protea), M. konae (Leucospermum, Eucalyptus), M. marksii (Eucalyptus, Leucadendron), T. associata (Eucalyptus,Protea), and T. parva (Eucalyptus, Protea), which in most cases were found to co-occur with other species of Mycosphaerella or Teratosphaeria on Proteaceae. Furthermore, earlier records of T. jonkershoekensis on Proteaceae in Australia were shown to be representative of two recently described species, T. associata and T. maxii. A phenomenon of underdeveloped, or micro-ascospores was also newly observed in asci of T. maculiformis and T. proteae-arboreae. The exact purpose of asci with two distinct types of ascospores remains to be clarified, as both types were observed to germinate on agar.
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Project description:Host and pathogen ecology are often closely linked, with evolutionary processes often leading to the development of host specificity traits in some pathogens. Host specificity may range from 'generalist', where pathogens infect any available competent host; to 'specialist', where pathogens repeatedly infect specific host species or families. Avian malaria ecology in the region remains largely unexplored, despite the presence of vulnerable endemic avian species. We analysed the expression of host specificity in avian haemosporidia, by applying a previously developed host specificity index to lineages isolated from wetland passerines in the Western Cape, South Africa. Parasite lineages were isolated using PCR and identified when possible using matching lineages deposited in GenBank and in MalAvi. Parasitic clades were constructed from phylogenetic trees consisting of Plasmodium and Haemoproteus lineages. Isolated lineages matched some strains of Plasmodium relictum, P. elongatum, Haemoproteus sylvae and H. lanii. Plasmodium lineages infected a wide range of hosts from several avian families in a generalist pattern of infection. Plasmodium spp. also exhibited an infection trend according to host abundance rather than host species. By contrast, Haemoproteus lineages were typically restricted to one or two host species or families, and displayed higher host fidelity than Plasmodium spp. The findings confirm that a range of host specificity traits are exhibited by avian haemosporidia in the region. The traits show the potential to not only impact infection prevalence within specific host species, but also to affect patterns of infection at the community level.
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Project description:BACKGROUND: Estimating evolutionary rates for slowly evolving viruses such as papillomaviruses (PVs) is not possible using fossil calibrations directly or sequences sampled over a time-scale of decades. An ability to correlate their divergence with a host species, however, can provide a means to estimate evolutionary rates for these viruses accurately. To determine whether such an approach is feasible, we sequenced complete feline PV genomes, previously available only for the domestic cat (Felis domesticus, FdPV1), from four additional, globally distributed feline species: Lynx rufus PV type 1, Puma concolor PV type 1, Panthera leo persica PV type 1, and Uncia uncia PV type 1. RESULTS: The feline PVs all belong to the Lambdapapillomavirus genus, and contain an unusual second noncoding region between the early and late protein region, which is only present in members of this genus. Our maximum likelihood and Bayesian phylogenetic analyses demonstrate that the evolutionary relationships between feline PVs perfectly mirror those of their feline hosts, despite a complex and dynamic phylogeographic history. By applying host species divergence times, we provide the first precise estimates for the rate of evolution for each PV gene, with an overall evolutionary rate of 1.95 x 10(-8) (95% confidence interval 1.32 x 10(-8) to 2.47 x 10(-8)) nucleotide substitutions per site per year for the viral coding genome. CONCLUSION: Our work provides evidence for long-term virus-host co-speciation of feline PVs, indicating that viral diversity in slowly evolving viruses can be used to investigate host species evolution. These findings, however, should not be extrapolated to other viral lineages without prior confirmation of virus-host co-divergence.
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Project description:Background & aimsThe bacterial leaf nodule symbiosis is an interaction where bacteria are housed in specialised structures in the leaves of their plant host. In the Rubiaceae plant family, host plants interact with Burkholderia bacteria. This interaction might play a role in the host plant defence system. It is unique due to its high specificity; the vertical transmission of the endophyte to the next generation of the host plant; and its supposedly obligatory character. Although previous attempts have been made to investigate this obligatory character by developing Burkholderia-free plants, none have succeeded and nodulating plants were still produced. In order to investigate the obligatory character of this endosymbiosis, our aims were to develop Burkholderia-free Psychotria umbellata plants and to investigate the effect of the absence of the endophytes on the host in a controlled environment.MethodsThe Burkholderia-free plants were obtained via embryo culture, a plant cultivation technique. In order to analyse the endophyte-free status, we screened the plants morphologically, microscopically and molecularly over a period of three years. To characterise the phenotype and growth of the in vitro aposymbiotic plants, we compared the growth of the Burkholderia-free plants to the nodulating plants under the same in vitro conditions.Key resultsAll the developed plants were Burkholderia-free and survived in a sterile in vitro environment. The growth analysis showed that plants without endophytes had a slower development.ConclusionsEmbryo culture is a cultivation technique with a high success rate for the development of Burkholderia-free plants of P. umbellata. The increased growth rate in vitro when the specific endophyte is present cannot be explained by possible benefits put forward in previous studies. This might indicate that the benefits of the endosymbiosis are not yet completely understood.
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Project description:Leguminous plants can enter into root nodule symbioses with nitrogen-fixing soil bacteria known as rhizobia. An intriguing but still poorly understood property of the symbiosis is its host specificity, which is controlled at multiple levels involving both rhizobial and host genes. It is widely believed that the host specificity is determined by specific recognition of bacterially derived Nod factors by the cognate host receptor(s). Here we describe the positional cloning of two soybean genes Rj2 and Rfg1 that restrict nodulation with specific strains of Bradyrhizobium japonicum and Sinorhizobium fredii, respectively. We show that Rj2 and Rfg1 are allelic genes encoding a member of the Toll-interleukin receptor/nucleotide-binding site/leucine-rich repeat (TIR-NBS-LRR) class of plant resistance (R) proteins. The involvement of host R genes in the control of genotype-specific infection and nodulation reveals a common recognition mechanism underlying symbiotic and pathogenic host-bacteria interactions and suggests the existence of their cognate avirulence genes derived from rhizobia. This study suggests that establishment of a root nodule symbiosis requires the evasion of plant immune responses triggered by rhizobial effectors.
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