Journal
CURRENT BIOLOGY
Volume 23, Issue 15, Pages 1478-1484Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2013.06.027
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Funding
- JSPS KAKENHI [21687020, 24117510]
- DFG [PI 430/8-1, SFB624]
- Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship
- global COE project entitled Genome Information Big Bang
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [25850035, 23710091, 24117510, 21687020] Funding Source: KAKEN
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Diverse insect species harbor symbiotic bacteria, which play important roles such as provisioning nutrients and providing defense against natural enemies [1-6]. Whereas nutritional symbioses are often indispensable for both partners, defensive symbioses tend to be of a facultative nature [1-12]. The Asian citrus psyllid Diaphorina citri is a notorious agricultural pest that transmits Liberibacter spp. (Alphaproteobacteria), causing the devastating citrus greening disease or Huanglongbing [13, 14]. In a symbiotic organ called the bacteriome, D. citri harbors two distinct intracellular symbionts: a putative nutrition provider, Carsonella_DC (Gammaproteobacteria), and an unnamed betaproteobacterium with unknown function [15], for which we propose the name Candidatus Profftella armatura. Here we report that Profftella is a defensive symbiont presumably of an obligate nature with an extremely streamlined genome. The genomes of Profftella and Carsonella_DC were drastically reduced to 464,857 bp and 174,014 bp, respectively, suggesting their ancient and mutually indispensible association with the host. Strikingly, 15% of the small Profftella genome encoded horizontally acquired genes for synthesizing a novel polyketide toxin. The toxin was extracted, pharmacologically and structurally characterized, and designated diaphorin. The presence of Profftella and its diaphorin-biosynthetic genes was perfectly conserved in the world's D. citri populations.
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