Our article (Open Access) describing heritable nutritional endosymbionts in Dictyopharidae planthoppers and alternative modes of their transmission across host generations has just been published in mBio! Congrats to Ania, Diego, Piotr and all of the co-authors.

The article describes two alternative strategies of Sodalis-symbiont transmission between generations in a family of planthoppers.

We show that in dictyopharid planthoppers, their ancient heritable symbionts Sulcia and Vidania have been repeatedly complemented by gammaproteobacteria Sodalis or Arsenophonus, which are localized in separate bacteriomes and contribute to B vitamin synthesis.

Strikingly, these gamma-symbionts can be transmitted in alternative ways: either invading posterior pole of full-grown oocytes together with ancient symbionts or separately, invading young oocytes through the anterior pole much earlier on.

Independently acquired gamma-symbionts fulfill conserved nutritional functions - but may use different strategies to establish heritable symbiosis. What seems constant in nutritional endosymbiosis is the diversity and change! Planthoppers and their symbionts can surprise!

 

For more details, see the article!

Michalik A, Castillo Franco D, Kobiałka M, Szklarzewicz T, Stroiński A, Łukasik P. 2021. Alternative transmission patterns in independently acquired nutritional cosymbionts of Dictyopharidae planthoppers. mBio 12:e01228-21.

 

September 1, 2021