Wolbachia grouping study, in major Trichogramma wasps in Iran
Subject Areas : entomology and othea arthropodsR. Darsouei 1 , J. Karimi 2 , V. Jahanbakhsh 3
1 - Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
2 - Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
3 - Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
Keywords:
Abstract :
The intracellular symbiont bacterium, Wolbachia is known as a reproductive parasite in different species of Trichogramma. Regard to importance of this symbiont in biological control programms, the present study addressed the efficiency of wsp gene to typing this symbiont from some populations of Trichogramma and also its prevalence. In this study which conducted through 2009 to 2010, 19 populations of Trichogramma were screened for Wolbachia infection. Among these, seven populations were determined as infected by Wolbachia. Eight strains of the bacterium were characterized which six strains belonged to subgroup Kue from A supergroup. The two remained strains were related to B supergroup and Sib subgroup. The double infection and superinfection were observed in Trichogramma populations. Among three species, T. embryophagum, T. brassicae and T. evanescens, the highest prevalence of Wolbachia was observed in T. brassicae with 57 % of samples populations. The most infection rate belonged to populations of Mazandaran province. Despite the separation of different strains of Wolbachia on the basis of wsp gene, recombination analysis indicated a doubt about the grouping results of this symbiont inferring from this gene. This analysis indicated existence of some genetic exchangesbetween different strains of Wolbachia in wsp gene. The new approach called Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST system) could be effective solution in more accurate characterization of these endosymbionts.
