Cross-validation of chemical and genetic disruption approaches to inform host cellular effects on abundance in .

Introduction: Endosymbiotic bacteria are widespread in nature, present in half of all insect species. The success of is supported by a commensal lifestyle. Unlike bacterial pathogens that overreplicate and harm host cells, infections have a relatively innocuous intracellular lifestyle.

A Light in the Dark: Uncovering Wolbachia-Host Interactions Using Fluorescence Imaging.

The success of microbial endosymbionts, which reside naturally within a eukaryotic "host" organism, requires effective microbial interaction with, and manipulation of, the host cells. Fluorescence microscopy has played a key role in elucidating the molecular mechanisms of endosymbiosis. For 30 years, fluorescence analyses have been a cornerstone in studies of endosymbiotic Wolbachia bacteria, focused on host colonization, maternal transmission, reproductive parasitism, horizontal gene transfer, viral suppression, and metabolic interactions in arthropods and nematodes.

Comparative analysis of wolbachia genomes reveals streamlining and divergence of minimalist two-component systems.

Two-component regulatory systems are commonly used by bacteria to coordinate intracellular responses with environmental cues. These systems are composed of functional protein pairs consisting of a sensor histidine kinase and cognate response regulator. In contrast to the well-studied Caulobacter crescentus system, which carries dozens of these pairs, the streamlined bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia pipientis encodes only two pairs: CckA/CtrA and PleC/PleD.