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Population Dynamics of Wolbachia in Laodelphax striatellus (Fallén) Under Successive Stress of Antibiotics

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Abstract

Wolbachia are the most common symbionts in arthropods; antibiotic treatment for eliminating the symbionts from their host is necessary to investigate the functions. Tetracycline antibiotics are widely used to remove endosymbiont Wolbachia from insect hosts. However, very little has been known on the effects of tetracycline on population size of Wolbachia in small brown planthopper (SBPH), Laodelphax striatellus (Fallén), an important insect pest of rice in Asia. Here, we investigated the dynamics of Wolbachia population density in females and males of L. striatellus by real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR method. The Wolbachia density in females and males of L. striatellus all declined sharply after treatment with 2 mg/mL tetracycline for one generation, and continued to decrease to a level which could not be detected by both qPCR and diagnostic PCR after treated for another generation, then maintained at 0 in the following three generations with continuous antibiotic treatment. Wolbachia infection did not recover in L. striatellus after stopping tetracycline treatment for ten generations. This is the first report to precisely monitor the population dynamics of Wolbachia in L. striatellus during successive tetracycline treatment and after that. The results provide a useful method for evaluating the efficiency of artificial operation of endosymbionts.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Yueliang Zhang at the Institute of Plant Protection, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China, for collecting the small brown planthopper, Laodelphax striatellus.

Funding

This research was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31672027) and the Independent Innovation Fund of Agricultural Science and Technology in Jiangsu province, China (cx(16)1001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Plant Protection, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, No. 50, Zhongling street, Nanjing, 210014, China

    Yongteng Li & Huifang Guo

  2. Department of Entomology, College of Plant Protection, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

    Xiangdong Liu

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  1. Yongteng Li
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  2. Xiangdong Liu
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  3. Huifang Guo
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Contributions

HG conceived the experiments. HG designed the experiments. YL collected the data. HG, YL, and XL analyzed the data. YL and HG wrote and reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Huifang Guo.

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Li, Y., Liu, X. & Guo, H. Population Dynamics of Wolbachia in Laodelphax striatellus (Fallén) Under Successive Stress of Antibiotics. Curr Microbiol 76, 1306–1312 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-019-01762-0

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