Project description:Endosymbiotic bacteria associated with eukaryotic hosts are omnipresent in nature, particularly in insects. Studying the bacterial side of host-symbiont interactions is, however, often limited by the unculturability and genetic intractability of the symbionts. Spiroplasma poulsonii is a maternally transmitted bacterial endosymbiont that is naturally associated with several Drosophila species. S. poulsonii strongly affects its host’s physiology, for example by causing male killing or by protecting it against various parasites. Despite intense work on this model since the 1950s, attempts to cultivate endosymbiotic Spiroplasma in vitro have failed so far. Here, we developed a method to sustain the in vitro culture of S. poulsonii by optimizing a commercially accessible medium. We also provide a complete genome assembly, including the first sequence of a natural plasmid of an endosymbiotic Spiroplasma species. Last, by comparing the transcriptome of the in vitro culture to the transcriptome of bacteria extracted from the host, we identified genes putatively involved in host-symbiont interactions. This work provides new opportunities to study the physiology of endosymbiotic Spiroplasma and paves the way to dissect insect-endosymbiont interactions with two genetically tractable partners.
Project description:We investigated the effect of Spiroplasma infection on Drosophila hemolymph protein content using Liquid Chromatography-tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). To this end, we extracted total hemolymph from uninfected and infected 10 days old females. At this age, Spiroplasma is already present at high titers in the hemolymph but does not cause major deleterious phenotypes to the fly. Extraction was achieved by puncturing the thorax and drawing out with a microinjector. Four replicates were made
Project description:We analysed the effect of the deficiency Df(2R)ED3921 and Df(2R)ED50000 on gene expression in embryos (stage 0-11), and wing imaginal discs and brains from 3rd instar larvae. Df(2R)ED3921 and Df(2R)ED50000 were described in Ragab et al. (2005) Genetics 172:1069-1078 2005.
Project description:To evaluate the change of miRNA expression profile in DF-1 cells in respond to Infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) infection, Deep sequencing was performed by LC Sciences (Hangzhou, China) on DF-1 cells infected with mock or IBDV Lx strain at an MOI of 1 for 24 h.
