It has been proposed that the reproductive abnormalities induced by Wolbachia are of interest to applied biologists, who are looking for novel means to genetically manipulated populations of insect pests that are important for economic and health reasons (Beard et al., 1993).  For instance, in control of transmission of vector-borne diseases, this approach aims to express foreign anti-parasitic or anti-viral gene products in Wolbachia harbored by insects.  Parasitoids used in biological control of insects may be more effective when infected with parthenogenesis Wolbachia (Stouthamer, 1993).  Wolbachia and its hosts also are ideal candidates for the study of mechanisms of host-parasite relationship, the evolution of infectious diseases, specifically host resistance, parasite virulence, and transmission dynamics (McGraw and O’Neill, 1999; Townson, 2002).

   Recently, lateral gene transfer (LGT) that occurs between Wolbachia and multicellular eukaryotes host genome has been reported  (Dunning-Hotopp et al., 2007 et al., 2007; Blaxter, 2007; Nikoh et al., 2008).  The presence of Wolbachia-derived DNA sequences in a beetle (Kondo et al., 2002) and a filarial nematode (Fenn et al., 2006), was investigated by screening whole-genome shotgun data from a wide range of nematodes and arthropods for nuclear insertions of Wolbachia DNA.  In addition, fragments of Wolbachia DNA were identified in introns of a previously sequenced gene from an animal filarial nematode, Dirofilaria immitis (Dunning-Hotopp et al., 2007).   However, the consequence of the endosymbiont-host lateral gene transfers have not yet been studied in detail and are poorly understood.

จากคุณ : Nor-mai - [ 16 ก.พ. 52 22:51:15 ]