Wolbachia Localization Pattern Variation and Dynamics in Drosophila Embryos

The obligate endosymbiotic bacterial genus Wolbachia infects a myriad of organisms, including mites, crustaceans, filarial nematodes, and arthropods. Wolbachia can be a parasite, as it is in\ud most arthropods, or share in mutualistic relationships, such as those with filarial nematodes. Certain species of these infected nematodes are then parasitic to other insects which can bite\ud humans and pass on the Wolbachia infected nematodes. The human body’s immune response to\ud the introduced Wolbachia infection can cause River blindness and Elephantiasis. Little is known about Wolbachia’s interactions with its multitude of hosts. A variety of different Wolbachia localization patterns have been observed in Drosophila embryos, even across the same species of fly and bacteria. The mechanism behind Wolbachia localization patterns has been studied in the\ud Drosophila oocyte and spermatocyte previously, but not the entire embryo. In this work it is\ud shown that the variety of observed localization patterns of any given Wolbachia species in any\ud given Drosophila species is, at least in part, because the localization of the Wolbachia is\ud dynamic over the course of the embryo’s development pre-gastrulation. It is also shown that the\ud dynamics of the Wolbachia differ in various bacteria-host species combinations and\ud preliminarily suggested that there is an association between the Wolbachia and the developing embryos’ embryonic and/or yolk nuclei depending on embryo age, bacteria species and host species. Contrary to past data, gene sequence analysis of the Wolbachia surface protein gene suggests Wsp is not solely responsible for Wolbachia localization pattern differences