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“Candidatus Mesochlamydia elodeae” (Chlamydiae: Parachlamydiaceae), a novel chlamydia parasite of free-living amoebae

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Abstract

Vannella sp. isolated from waterweed Elodea sp. was found infected by a chlamydia-like organism. This organism behaves like a parasite, causing the death through burst of its host. Once the vannellae degenerated, the parasite was successfully kept in laboratory within a Saccamoeba sp. isolated from the same waterweed sample, which revealed in fine through electron microscopy to harbor two bacterial endosymbionts: the chlamydial parasite we introduce and another endosymbiont initially and naturally present in the host. Herein, we provide molecular-based identification of both the amoeba host and its two endosymbionts, with special focus on the chlamydia parasite. High sequence similarity values of the 18S rDNA permitted to assign the amoeba to the species Saccamoeba lacustris (Amoebozoa, Tubulinea). The bacterial endosymbiont naturally harbored by the host belonged to Sphingomonas koreensis (Alpha-Proteobacteria). The chlamydial parasite showed a strict specificity for Saccamoeba spp., being unable to infect a variety of other amoebae, including Acanthamoeba, and it was itself infected by a bacteriophage. Sequence similarity values of the 16S rDNA and phylogenetic analysis indicated that this strain is a new member of the family Parachlamydiaceae, for which we propose the name “Candidatus Mesochlamydia elodeae.”

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Acknowledgments

We thank Elke Schneider and Liane Junglas from the Electron Microscopy Department for the excellent technical assistance (Head of the department: Dr. Bärbel Hauröder). DC was partially supported by Novartis Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chlamydia Research Association (CHLAREAS), 12 rue du Maconnais, 54500, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France

    Daniele Corsaro

  2. Laboratory of Soil Biology, Institute of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, rue Emile Argand 11, 2000, Neuchâtel, Switzerland

    Daniele Corsaro

  3. Institut für Medizinische Mikrobiologie der Universität Duisburg-Essen, Virchowstr.179, 45147, Essen, Germany

    Karl-Dieter Müller

  4. Biofilm Centre, Aquatic Microbiology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Universitätsstrasse 5, 45141, Essen, Germany

    Jost Wingender

  5. Central Institute of the Federal Armed Forces Medical Services, P.O. Box 7340, 56070, Koblenz, Germany

    Rolf Michel

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  1. Daniele Corsaro
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  2. Karl-Dieter Müller
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  3. Jost Wingender
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  4. Rolf Michel
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Correspondence to Daniele Corsaro.

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Supplementary Figure 1

In situ identification of Mesochlamydia strain KV in Saccamoeba lacustris cells by FISH using Cy3-labeled probe Chls‐523, which targets all Chlamydiae (red) (Poppert et al. 2002). 1000×. (JPEG 34 kb)

High resolution image (TIFF 731 kb)

Supplementary Table 1

Pair-wise sequence similarity values for near full 16S rDNA of major representing taxa of Chlamydiae (XLS 32 kb)

Supplementary Table 2

Pair-wise sequence similarity values within the family Parachlamydiaceae (XLS 21 kb)

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Corsaro, D., Müller, KD., Wingender, J. et al. “Candidatus Mesochlamydia elodeae” (Chlamydiae: Parachlamydiaceae), a novel chlamydia parasite of free-living amoebae. Parasitol Res 112, 829–838 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-012-3213-2

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