Insect Sex Determination Manipulated by Their Endosymbionts: Incidences, Mechanisms and Implications

Overview

Journal Insects

Specialty Biology

Date 2015 Oct 16

PMID 26467955

Citations 53

Authors

Daisuke Kageyama

Satoko Narita

Masaya Watanabe

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The sex-determining systems of arthropods are surprisingly diverse. Some species have male or female heterogametic sex chromosomes while other species do not have sex chromosomes. Most species are diploids but some species, including wasps, ants, thrips and mites, are haplodiploids (n in males; 2n in females). Many of the sexual aberrations, such as sexual mosaics, sex-specific lethality and conversion of sexuality, can be explained by developmental defects including double fertilization of a binucleate egg, loss of a sex chromosome or perturbation of sex-determining gene expression, which occur accidentally or are induced by certain environmental conditions. However, recent studies have revealed that such sexual aberrations can be caused by various groups of vertically-transmitted endosymbiotic microbes such as bacteria of the genera Wolbachia, Rickettsia, Arsenophonus, Spiroplasma and Cardinium, as well as microsporidian protists. In this review, we first summarize the accumulated data on endosymbiont-induced sexual aberrations, and then discuss how such endosymbionts affect the developmental system of their hosts and what kinds of ecological and evolutionary effects these endosymbionts have on their host populations.

Citing Articles

Sex-ratio distortion in a weed biological control agent, Ceratapion basicorne (Coleoptera: Brentidae), associated with a species of Rickettsia.

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Evidence for feminized genetic males in a flea beetle using newly identified X-linked markers.

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Two male-killing from that are closely related but distinct in genome structure.

Arai H, Watada M, Kageyama D R Soc Open Sci. 2024; 11(1):231502.

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Wolbachia: Advancing into a Second Century.

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Two sympatric lineages of Australian Cnestus solidus share Ambrosiella symbionts but not Wolbachia.

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