Publication

Differential gene expression in the insect vector Anasa tristis in response to symbiont colonization but not infection with a vectored phytopathogen

Downloadable Content

Persistent URL
Last modified
  • 06/25/2025
Type of Material
Authors
    Sandra Y. Mendiola, Emory UniversityJason Chen, Emory UniversityBen Lukubye, Emory UniversityDavid Civitello, Emory UniversityNic Vega, Emory UniversityNicole Marie Gerardo, Emory University
Language
  • English
Date
  • 2024-05-21
Publisher
  • Frontiers
Publication Version
Copyright Statement
  • © 2024 Mendiola, Chen, Lukubye, Civitello, Vega and Gerardo
License
Final Published Version (URL)
Title of Journal or Parent Work
Volume
  • 12
Grant/Funding Information
  • The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding for this work was provided by the United States Department of Agriculture in a grant to NG (USDA NIFA 2019-67013-29371). SM was supported by a USDA NIFA Predoctoral Fellowship (project 2021-67034-35147).
Supplemental Material (URL)
Abstract
  • Many insects selectively associate with specific microbes in long-term, symbiotic relationships. Maintaining these associations can be vital for the insect hosts’ development, but insects must also contend with potential coinfections from other microbes in the environment. Fending off microbial threats while maintaining mutualistic microbes has resulted in many insects developing specialized symbiotic organs to house beneficial microbes. Though locally concentrated in these organs, symbiont establishment can have global consequences for the insect, including influence over the success of coinfecting microbes in colonizing the insect host. We use a transcriptomic approach to examine how the mutualistic symbiosis between the agricultural pest Anasa tristis and bacteria in the genus Caballeronia affects insect gene expression locally within the symbiotic organs and in the insect host at large. We simultaneously determine whether Caballeronia colonization impacts insect host responses to infection with the plant pathogen Serratia marcescens, which it vectors to plants. We found that no significant differential gene expression was elicited by infection with S. marcescens. This was a surprising finding given previous work indicating that symbiotic A. tristis clear S. marcescens infection rapidly compared to aposymbiotic individuals. Our results indicate that symbiotic and nonsymbiotic tissues in A. tristis differ greatly in their gene expression, particularly following successful symbiont colonization. We found evidence for local downregulation of host immunity and upregulation of cell communication within the symbiotic organs, functions which can facilitate the success of the A. tristis-Caballeronia symbiosis.
Author Notes
Keywords
Research Categories
  • Biology, Microbiology
  • Biology, Entomology

Tools

Relations

In Collection:

Items

Thumbnail Title File Description Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
file details Publication File - wb7x1.pdf Primary Content 2025-06-05 Public Download