Keywords: Drosophila simulans

Wolbachia infection negatively impacts Drosophila simulans heat tolerance in a strain- and trait-specific manner

Liam F Ferguson, Perran A Ross, Belinda van Heerwaarden,  bioRxiv,  2023.
The susceptibility of insects to rising temperatures has largely been measured by their ability to survive thermal extremes. However, until recently, the capacity for maternally inherited endosymbionts to influence insect heat tolerance has been overlooked. Further, the impact of ...
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Wolbachia Induces Structural Defects Harmful to Drosophila simulans Riverside Spermiogenesis.

M. G. Riparbelli, A. Pratelli and G. Callaini,  Cells,  12. 2023.
The relationship between cytoplasmic incompatibility and the obligate intracellular alphaproteobacteria Wolbachia has for a long time been reported. Although the molecular mechanisms responsible for this reproductive alteration are beginning to be understood, the effects of ...
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Wolbachia action in the sperm produces developmentally deferred chromosome segregation defects during the Drosophila mid-blastula transition

B. Warecki, S. W. A. Titen, M. S. Alam, G. Vega, N. Lemseffer, K. Hug, et al.,  eLife,  11:e81292. 2022.
Wolbachia, a vertically transmitted endosymbiont infecting many insects, spreads rapidly through uninfected populations by a mechanism known as cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI). In CI, a paternally delivered modification of the sperm leads to chromatin defects and lethality ...
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RNA virome diversity and Wolbachia infection in individual Drosophila simulans flies

A. S. Ortiz-Baez, M. Shi, A. A. Hoffmann and E. C. Holmes,  Journal of General Virology,  102. 2021.
The endosymbiont bacteria of the genus Wolbachia are associated with multiple mutualistic effects on insect biology, including nutritional and antiviral properties. Members of the genus Wolbachia naturally occur in fly species of the genus Drosophila, providing an operational ...
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Selfish genetic elements and male fertility

R. L. Verspoor, T. A. R. Price and N. Wedell,  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences,  375:7. 2020.
Selfish genetic elements (SGEs) are diverse and near ubiquitous in Eukaryotes and can be potent drivers of evolution. Here, we discuss SGEs that specifically act on sperm to gain a transmission advantage to the next generation. The diverse SGEs that affect sperm often impose ...
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Gene flow mediates the role of sex chromosome meiotic drive during complex speciation

Meiklejohn, CDL, Emily L.; Gordon, Kathleen E.; Rzatkiewicz, Thomas; Kingan, Sarah B.; Geneva, Anthony J.; Vedanayagam, Jeffrey P.; Muirhead, Christina A.; Garrigan, Daniel; Stern, David L.; Presgraves, Daven C.,  eLife,  7:e35468. 2018.
During speciation, sex chromosomes often accumulate interspecific genetic incompatibilities faster than the rest of the genome. The drive theory posits that sex chromosomes are susceptible to recurrent bouts of meiotic drive and suppression, causing the evolutionary build-up of ...
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Wolbachia and cytoplasmic incompatibility in mosquitoes

Sinkins, SP,  Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,  34:723-729. 2004.
Wolbachia are maternally inherited bacteria that induce cytoplasmic incompatibility in mosquitoes, and are able to use these patterns of sterility to spread themselves through populations. For this reason they have been proposed as a gene drive system for mosquito genetic ...
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