Impact of a novel Rickettsia symbiont on the life history and virus transmission capacity of its host whitefly(Bemisia tabaci)  

作　　者：Teng Lei Jing Zhao Hua-Ling Wang Yin-Quan Liu Shu-Sheng Liu 

机构地区：[1]Ministry of Agriculture Key Laboratory of Agricultural Entomology,Institute of Insect Sciences,Zhejiang University,Hangzhou,China

出　　处：《Insect Science》2021年第2期377-391,共15页昆虫科学（英文版）

基　　金：We thank Professor Myron Zalucki,The University of Queensland,Australia for editing the final version of the manuscript prior to submission.This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Project no.31772173).

摘　　要：Rickettsia consists of some of the most prevalent symbionts of insects and often plays a significant role in the biology of its hosts.Recently,a maternally inherited Torix group Rickettsia,provisionally named as RiTBt,was recorded in a species of notorious pest whitefly,tentatively named as Asia II 1,from the Bemisia tabaci complex.The role of this Rickettsia in the biology of its host is unknown.Here we investigated the impact of RiTBt on the performance and virus transmission capacity of Asia II 1.RiTBt did not significantly affect the life history parameters of the whitefly when the host insect was reared on tobacco,tomato,and cotton,three host plants with relatively low,medium and high suitability to the whitefly.Intriguingly,RiTBt slightly enhanced whitefly transmission of cotton leaf curl Multan virus(CLCuMuV),a virus that is transmitted by the whitefly in the field and has caused extensive damage to cotton production.Specifically,compared with whiteflies without RiTBt,following a 48 h virus acquisition whiteflies with RiTBt had higher titer of virus and showed higher efficiency of virus transmission.A rickettsial secretory protein BtR242 was identified as a putative virus-binding protein,and was observed to interact with the coat protein of CLCuMuV in vitro.Viral infection of the whitefly downregulated gene transcript levels of the BtR242 gene.These observations indicate that RiTBt has limited impact on the biology of the Asia II 1 whitefly,and whether this symbiont has functions in the biology of other host whiteflies warrants future investigation.

关 键 词：life history RICKETTSIA SYMBIONT virus transmission WHITEFLY 

分 类 号：S433.3[农业科学—农业昆虫与害虫防治]