A novel and diverse family of filamentous DNA viruses associated with parasitic wasps.

Large dsDNA viruses from the class are currently composed of four viral families infecting insects and/or crustaceans. Since the 1970s, particles described as filamentous viruses (FVs) have been observed by electronic microscopy in several species of Hymenoptera parasitoids but until recently, no genomic data was available. This study provides the first comparative morphological and genomic analysis of these FVs.

Proteo-Trancriptomic Analyses Reveal a Large Expansion of Metalloprotease-Like Proteins in Atypical Venom Vesicles of the Wasp (Braconidae).

(Ichneumonoidea, Braconidae) is an endoparasitoid wasp of lepidopteran caterpillars. Its parasitic success relies on vesicles (named Virus-Like Particles or MpVLPs) that are synthesized in the venom gland and injected into the parasitoid host along with the venom during oviposition. In order to define the content and understand the biogenesis of these atypical vesicles, we performed a transcriptome analysis of the venom gland and a proteomic analysis of the venom and purified MpVLPs.

Plant-phenotypic changes induced by parasitoid ichnoviruses enhance the performance of both unparasitized and parasitized caterpillars.

There is increasing awareness that interactions between plants and insects can be mediated by microbial symbionts. Nonetheless, evidence showing that symbionts associated with organisms beyond the second trophic level affect plant-insect interactions are restricted to a few cases belonging to parasitoid-associated bracoviruses. Insect parasitoids harbour a wide array of symbionts which, like bracoviruses, can be injected into their herbivorous hosts to manipulate their physiology and behaviour.

Progeny fitness determines the performance of the parasitoid Therophilus javanus, a prospective biocontrol agent against the legume pod borer.

Therophilus javanus (Bhat & Gupta) is an exotic larval endoparasitoid newly imported from Asia into Africa as a classical biological control agent against the pod borer Maruca vitrata (Fabricius). The parasitoid preference for the five larval instars of M. vitrata and their influence on progeny sex ratio were assessed together with the impact of larval host age at the time of oviposition on development time, mother longevity and offspring production.