{"id":1965,"date":"2022-01-13T19:24:35","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T00:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reu.ecology.uga.edu\/?p=1965"},"modified":"2022-12-05T13:25:14","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T18:25:14","slug":"tricks-not-treats-the-genetic-basis-of-how-a-parasite-manipulates-its-hosts-reproduction-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reu.ecology.uga.edu\/?p=1965","title":{"rendered":"Tricks Not Treats: Wolbachia&#8217;s Manipulation of Sex in Infected D. subquinaria Offspring"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><meta charset=\"utf-8\">Madeline Sheppard, a student at Eckerd College, worked in the lab of <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/dyerlab.genetics.uga.edu\/index.html?_ga=2.252345228.401973372.1642006771-686348520.1611684546&amp;_gl=1*kt20si*_ga*Njg2MzQ4NTIwLjE2MTE2ODQ1NDY.*_ga_Y3X15W41ZS*MTY0MjE5MDU3OS4xLjEuMTY0MjE5MDU5My4w\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"http:\/\/dyerlab.genetics.uga.edu\/index.html?_ga=2.252345228.401973372.1642006771-686348520.1611684546&amp;_gl=1*kt20si*_ga*Njg2MzQ4NTIwLjE2MTE2ODQ1NDY.*_ga_Y3X15W41ZS*MTY0MjE5MDU3OS4xLjEuMTY0MjE5MDU5My4w\" target=\"_blank\">Dr. Kelly Dyer<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Abstract <\/strong><em>Wolbachia<\/em> is a bacteria that is found in up to 60% of all insects, which is transmitted exclusively from mother to offspring through the egg. In many host species <em>Wolbachia<\/em> infection does not <em>Wolbachia<\/em> are gram-negative maternally transmitted bacterial endosymbionts that are found in upwards of 60% of arthropods. Here, we aimed to determine the phenotype expressed in <em>D. subquinaria <\/em>when they are infected with a strain of <em>Wolbachia <\/em>originally found in a closely related species, <em>D. recens. Wolbachia <\/em>infection is expressed as one of two phenotypes<em>: <\/em>Cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI),<em> <\/em>which causes the deaths of most infected offspring, and<em> <\/em>Male Killing (MK), which causes the death of the sons of infected males. Additionally, we tested how <em>Wolbachia<\/em> interacts with the varied genetic backgrounds of<em> D. subquinaria <\/em>populations, as well as how that would influence which phenotype is displayed in infected offspring. We tested a total of 15 lines of <em>D. subquinaria<\/em> by taking 2 to 3 infected females and crossing them with 1 uninfected male. The F<sub>1<\/sub> offspring from those crosses were collected, and the sex distribution per line\u2019s offspring was determined. Ten lines produced a significant number of flies (n>10). We tested for Wolbachia infection by using PCR, and determined the F<sub>1<\/sub> generation was positive for <em>Wolbachia<\/em>. All lines expressed evidence of the MK phenotype, and four lines showed nearly complete MK (98-100% female). The remaining six expressed partial MK (60-84% female). In the future, we aim to determine whether there is a genetic suppressor of the MK phenotype in <em>D. <\/em>subquinaria, as well as to generalize the results of this project to further understand the population dynamics of<em> Wolbachia-<\/em>infected flies.<\/p>\n\n\n<a href=\"https:\/\/reu.ecology.uga.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Sheppard_poster.pdf\" class=\"pdfemb-viewer\" style=\"\" data-width=\"max\" data-height=\"max\" data-toolbar=\"bottom\" data-toolbar-fixed=\"off\">Sheppard_poster<\/a>\n<p class=\"wp-block-pdfemb-pdf-embedder-viewer\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Madeline Sheppard, a student at Eckerd College, worked in the lab of Dr. Kelly Dyer Abstract Wolbachia is a bacteria that is found in up to 60% of all insects, which is transmitted exclusively from mother to offspring through the egg. In many host species Wolbachia infection does not Wolbachia are gram-negative maternally transmitted bacterial<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/reu.ecology.uga.edu\/?p=1965\" class=\"themebutton2\">READ MORE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101011,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[62],"tags":[67,23,6,64],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reu.ecology.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reu.ecology.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reu.ecology.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reu.ecology.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/101011"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reu.ecology.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1965"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/reu.ecology.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2579,"href":"https:\/\/reu.ecology.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965\/revisions\/2579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reu.ecology.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reu.ecology.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reu.ecology.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}