Nature Genetics
32, 402 - 407 (2002)
Published online: 3 September 2002; | doi:10.1038/ng986
Genome sequence of the endocellular obligate symbiont of tsetse flies, Wigglesworthia glossinidiaLeyla Akman1, 5, 6, Atsushi Yamashita2, 6, Hidemi Watanabe3, Kenshiro Oshima4, Tadayoshi Shiba2, Masahira Hattori2, 3
& Serap Aksoy11
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Section of Vector Biology, Yale University School of Medicine, 60 College Street, 606 LEPH, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA. 2
School of Science, Kitasato University, 1-15-1 Kitasato, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 228-8555, Japan. 3
Human Genome Research Group, RIKEN Genomic Sciences Center, 1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 230-0045, Japan. 4
Hitachi Instruments Service Company, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan. 5
Present address: Center for Infectious Diseases, Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, State University of New York, Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794, USA. 6
These authors contributed equally to this.
Correspondence should be addressed to Masahira Hattori hattori@genome.ls.kitasato_u.ac.jp or Serap Aksoy serap.aksoy@yale.eduMany insects that rely on a single food source throughout their developmental cycle harbor beneficial microbes that provide nutrients absent from their restricted diet. Tsetse flies, the vectors of African trypanosomes, feed exclusively on blood and rely on one such intracellular microbe for nutritional provisioning and fecundity. As a result of co-evolution with hosts over millions of years, these mutualists have lost the ability to survive outside the sheltered environment of their host insect cells. We present the complete annotated genome of Wigglesworthia glossinidia brevipalpis, which is composed of one chromosome of 697,724 base pairs (bp) and one small plasmid, called pWig1, of 5,200 bp. Genes involved in the biosynthesis of vitamin metabolites, apparently essential for host nutrition and fecundity, have been retained. Unexpectedly, this obligate's genome bears hallmarks of both parasitic and free-living microbes, and the gene encoding the important regulatory protein DnaA is absent.
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