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Journal of Bacteriology, August 2005, p. 5136-5145, Vol. 187, No. 15
0021-9193/05/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.187.15.5136-5145.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Distribution, Expression, and Motif Variability of Ankyrin Domain Genes in Wolbachia pipientis{dagger}

Iñaki Iturbe-Ormaetxe, Gaelen R. Burke, Markus Riegler, and Scott L. O'Neill*

School of Integrative Biology, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Brisbane, Australia

Received 11 January 2005/ Accepted 28 April 2005

The endosymbiotic bacterium Wolbachia pipientis infects a wide range of arthropods, in which it induces a variety of reproductive phenotypes, including cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), parthenogenesis, male killing, and reversal of genetic sex determination. The recent sequencing and annotation of the first Wolbachia genome revealed an unusually high number of genes encoding ankyrin domain (ANK) repeats. These ANK genes are likely to be important in mediating the Wolbachia-host interaction. In this work we determined the distribution and expression of the different ANK genes found in the sequenced Wolbachia wMel genome in nine Wolbachia strains that induce different phenotypic effects in their hosts. A comparison of the ANK genes of wMel and the non-CI-inducing wAu Wolbachia strain revealed significant differences between the strains. This was reflected in sequence variability in shared genes that could result in alterations in the encoded proteins, such as motif deletions, amino acid insertions, and in some cases disruptions due to insertion of transposable elements and premature stops. In addition, one wMel ANK gene, which is part of an operon, was absent in the wAu genome. These variations are likely to affect the affinity, function, and cellular location of the predicted proteins encoded by these genes.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: School of Integrative Biology, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Brisbane, Australia. Phone: 61 7 33652471. Fax: 61 7 33469213. E-mail: scott.oneill{at}uq.edu.au.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jb.asm.org/.

Journal of Bacteriology, August 2005, p. 5136-5145, Vol. 187, No. 15
0021-9193/05/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.187.15.5136-5145.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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