Wolbachia
| Wolbachia | |
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| Transmission electron micrograph of Wolbachia within an insect cell. Credit:Public Library of Science / Scott O'Neill |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Bacteria |
| Phylum: | Proteobacteria |
| Class: | Alphaproteobacteria |
| Subclass: | Rickettsidae |
| Order: | Rickettsiales |
| Family: | Rickettsiaceae |
| Genus: | Wolbachia |
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Wolbachia is a genus of bacteria which infects arthropod species, including a high proportion of insects, as well as some nematodes. It is one of the world's most common parasitic microbes and is possibly the most common reproductive parasite in the biosphere. Its interactions with its hosts are often complex, and in some cases have evolved to be mutualistic rather than parasitic. Some host species cannot reproduce, or even survive, without Wolbachia infection. One study concluded that more than 16% of neotropical insect species carry bacteria of this genus, and as many as 25 to 70 percent of all insect species are estimated to be potential hosts.
The genus was first identified in 1924 by Marshall Hertig and S. Burt Wolbach in Culex pipiens, the common house mosquito. Hertig formally described the species in 1936 as Wolbachia pipientis. Research on Wolbachia intensified after 1971, when Janice Yen and A. Ralph Barr of UCLA discovered that Culex mosquito eggs were killed by a cytoplasmic incompatibility when the sperm of Wolbachia-infected males fertilized infection-free eggs. The genus Wolbachia is of considerable interest today due to its ubiquitous distribution, its many different evolutionary interactions, and its potential use as a biocontrol agent.
These bacteria can infect many different types of organs, but are most notable for the infections of the testes and ovaries of their hosts. Wolbachia species are ubiquitous in mature eggs, but not mature sperm. Only infected females therefore pass the infection on to their offspring. Wolbachia maximize their spread by significantly altering the reproductive capabilities of its hosts, with four different phenotypes:
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