accelerated microevolution in an outer membrane protein (omp) of the intracellular bacteria wolbachia加速微进化的外膜蛋白(omp)细胞内细菌沃尔巴克氏体属.pdfVIP

Baldo et al. BMC Evolutionary Biology 2010, 10:48 /1471-2148/10/48 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Accelerated microevolution in an outer membrane protein (OMP) of the intracellular bacteria Wolbachia 1,5* 3 4 2 3 Laura Baldo , Christopher A Desjardins , Jacob A Russell , Julie K Stahlhut , John H Werren Abstract Background: Outer membrane proteins (OMPs) of Gram-negative bacteria are key players in the biology of bacterial-host interactions. However, while considerable attention has been given to OMPs of vertebrate pathogens, relatively little is known about the role of these proteins in bacteria that primarily infect invertebrates. One such OMP is found in the intracellular bacteria Wolbachia, which are widespread symbionts of arthropods and filarial nematodes. Recent experimental studies have shown that the Wolbachia surface protein (WSP) can trigger host immune responses and control cell death programming in humans, suggesting a key role of WSP for establishment and persistence of the symbiosis in arthropods. Results: Here we performed an analysis of 515 unique alleles found in 831 Wolbachia isolates, to investigate WSP structure, microevolution and population genetics. WSP shows an eight-strand transmembrane b-barrel structure with four extracellular loops containing hypervariable regions (HVRs). A clustering approach based upon patterns of HVR haplotype diversity was used to group similar WSP sequences and to estimate the relative contribution of mutation and recombination during early stages of protein divergence. Results indicate that although point mutations generate most of the new protein haplotypes, recombination is a predominant force triggering diversity since the very first steps of protein evo