Virtually all plants and animals, including humans, are home to symbiotic microorganisms.
Symbiotic interactions can be neutral, harmful or have beneficial effects on the host …

The most widespread intracellular bacteria in the animal kingdom are maternally inherited
endosymbionts of the genus Wolbachia. Their prevalence in arthropods and nematodes …

Since the discovery of antimicrobial peptide responses 40 years ago, the fruit fly Drosophila
melanogaster has proven to be a powerful model for the study of innate immunity. Early work …

Animals live in symbiosis with numerous microbe species. While some can protect hosts
from infection and benefit host health, components of the microbiota or changes to the …

Drosophila melanogaster is a valuable invertebrate model for viral infection and antiviral
immunity, and is a focus for studies of insect-virus coevolution. Here we use a metagenomic …

Starting in 2006, surprisingly tiny genomes have been discovered from numerous bacterial
symbionts of insect hosts. Despite their size, each retains some genes that enable …

Wolbachia are the most abundant bacterial endosymbionts among arthropods. Although
maternally inherited, they do not conform to the widespread view that vertical transmission …

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria are currently being released for
arbovirus suppression around the world. Their potential to invade populations and persist …

Animals live together with diverse bacteria that can impact their biology. In Drosophila
melanogaster, gut-associated bacterial communities are relatively simple in composition but …

Wolbachia pipientis is an endosymbiotic bacterium estimated to chronically infect between
40–75% of all arthropod species. Aedes aegypti, the principle mosquito vector of dengue …