Talk:Wolbachia

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Preston Gittelson.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:04, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 January 2020 and 7 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lisle001, Michellwww. Peer reviewers: Katlynheneghan.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:04, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Rewording needed
Page should be reworded to avoid the implication that Wolbachia only infects arthropods. It is mentioned on the page that the bacteria infects nematodes as well, suggesting it infects species within the clade Ecdysozoa. Not sure about this, but should be fixed. Andruid (talk) 15:37, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Elaboration?
''Within arthropods, Wolbachia is notable for significantly altering the reproductive capabilities of its hosts. These bacteria can infect many different types of organs, but are most notable for the infections of the testes and ovaries of their hosts.''


 * No elaboration on this? The reason this is important is because the bacteria are influencing the evolution of their hosts.  If I remember correctly, the changes they make reduce fertility in both sexes when mating with uninfected individuals, but not when infected individuals mate with each other. — Omegatron 19:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Infected males mating with uninfected females leads to non-viable eggs but infected males can successfully mate with infected females. This is cytoplasmic incompatibility. Infection itself appears to reduce fitness in both sexes but less so than for uninfected females running the risk of mating with infected fe males and wasting eggs. The infected cytoplasm is thus actually fitter than the uninfected cytoplasm irrespective of the phenotype that the parasite induces in its host. Presumably the parasite has adapted to some extent to avoid doing too much harm to the host, or at least this would be its evolutionary imperative. The species I worked on (Hypolimnas bolina) showed a 10% decline in egg clutch sizes and by extension probably a reduction in lifetime fecundity. Interesting story - there is a strain of Wolbachia that does seriously harm its host by reproducing to high levels in neural tissue and causing seriously aberrant behavior - I'll see if I can find a reference for that.


 * I cannot find a reference saying that the parasite is particularly found in the gonads, but I have read this in several sources and can attest that dissected gonadal tissue is what is often used to obtain extracted parasite DNA for detection or sequencing - almost every paper I have read describes this method. The parasite is, however, found in all tissues of the host to some level.--ChrisJMoor 17:30, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Copyvio?
-This entire page, down to the references, is exacly the same as the Wolbachia page on answers.com, which I didn't see cited. Who's copying from whom? Kate I, April 12th
 * Answers.com copies from wikipedia, Kate I. See its article. --ChrisJMoor 14:52, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Lepidopteran mimicry links
Andolfatto P, Scriber JM, Charlesworth B. No association between mitochondrial DNA haplotypes and a female-limited mimicry phenotype in Papilio glaucus. Evolution. 2003 Feb;57(2):305-16. Abstract http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12683527 Has anyone studied associations between Wolbachia strains and lepidopteran morphs ? Shyamal (talk) 04:57, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok there seems to be theoretical support SASAKI Akira ; KAWAGUCHI Isao ; YOSHIMORI Akira (2002) Spatial mosaic and interfacial dynamics in a Müllerian mimicry system. Theoretical population biology 61(1):49-71

http://bio-math10.biology.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~sasaki/HP/pdf-paper/TPB2002.pdf but looks like nobody has done field studies. Shyamal (talk) 05:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Applications to human health
It is unclear what is the meaning of the following sentence near the middle of this section: "...in an excellent promise for...suppression." Should that be "...showing excellent promise for...suppression." maybe? 148.177.1.211 (talk) 16:03, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Helpful References
Charlat, S., Hurst, G.D., Mercot, H. (2003). Evolutionary consequences of Wolbachia infections. Trends in Genetics. 19(4):217–23. http://wolfweb.unr.edu/homepage/jaz/eecb752/lecture04/charlat2003.pdf

Dobson, S.L., Bourtzis, K., Braig, H.R., Jones, B.F., Zhou, W., Rousset, F., O’Neill, S.L. (1999). Wolbachia infections are distributed throughout insect somatic and germ line tissues. Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 29(2): 153–160. http://www.uky.edu/~sdobson/OpenAccess/Publ/Tropism.pdf

Wu, K., Hoy, M.A. (2012). Extended starvation reduced and eliminated Wolbachia, but not Cardinium, from Metaseiulus occidentalis females (Acari: Phytoseiidae): a need to reassess Wolbachia’s status in this predatory mite? Journal of Invertebrate Pathology 109(1): 20–26 http://hy2ju6vj2n.search.serialssolutions.com.ezp.slu.edu/?genre=article&issn=00222011&title=Journal%20of%20Invertebrate%20Pathology&volume=109&issue=1&date=20120101&atitle=Extended%20starvation%20reduced%20and%20eliminated%20Wolbachia%2C%20but%20not%20Cardinium%2C%20from%20Metaseiulus%20occidentalis%20females%20%28Acari%3A%20Phytoseiidae%29%3A%20A%20need%20to%20reassess%20Wolbachia%E2%80%99s%20status%20in%20this%20predatory%20mite%3F&spage=20&pages=20-26&sid=EBSCO:ScienceDirect&aulast=Wu,%20Ke

Li, Y.Y., Fields, P.G., Pang, B.P., Coghlin, P.C., Floate, K.D. (2015). Prevalence and diversity of Wolbachia bacteria infecting insect pests of stored products. Journal of Stored Products Research. 62: 93-100. http://hy2ju6vj2n.search.serialssolutions.com.ezp.slu.edu/?genre=article&issn=0022474X&title=Journal%20of%20Stored%20Products%20Research&volume=62&issue=&date=20150501&atitle=Prevalence%20and%20diversity%20of%20Wolbachia%20bacteria%20infecting%20insect%20pests%20of%C2%A0stored%20products&spage=93&pages=93-100&sid=EBSCO:ScienceDirect&aulast=Li,%20Y.-Y.

Gern Blanston 13 (talk) 15:25, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Wolbachia in Trichogramma wasps
Here are some articles I found that will help begin a new section on Trichogramma wasps on the Wolbachia page:

Huigens, M. E., et al. 2004. Natural interspecific and intraspecific horizontal transfer of parthenogenesis–inducing wolbachia in trichogramma wasps. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 271: 509-515.

Werren, John H. 1997. Biology of wolbachia. Annual review of entomology 42: 587-609.

Grenier, Simon, et al. 1998. Successful horizontal transfer of Wolbachia symbionts between Trichogramma wasps. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 265: 1441-1445.

Bourtzis, Kostas, O'Neill, Scott. 1998. Wolbachia Infections and Arthropod Reproduction. Bioscience 48: 287-293.

BlueBioBill (talk) 00:45, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Review
Although the article contains a lot of information and evolutionary application of Wolbochia, I found that the article lacks in its organization and its clarity. In order to fix a lot of these unclear statements, I suggest cutting down the wordiness. One example, “In leafminers of the species Phyllonorycter blancardella, Wolbachia bacteria help their hosts produce green islands on yellowing tree leaves, allowing the hosts to continue feeding while growing to their adult forms." could be reduced. Additionally, the language should be made simpler for the everyday reader, rather than very verbose. In regards to organizations, parts of the Role in sexual differentiation of hosts became quite cluttered with different sets of information. What originally was role in sexual differentiation of hosts became speciation. That being said, I formed two new sections: method of sexual differentiation in hosts and effects of sexual differentiation in hosts. In regards to its clarity, many parts of the article, especially the “applications to human health” are incredibly dense materials. Partly the reason why is that they are from studies that are primary sources. For example the Effect of Wolbachia on the replication of West Nile virus does not seem to be a reliable source since it is a very recent study that may or may not have a review study that supports the data. That being said, I am unsure if this should be on Wikipedia since the detail of information should be on Wikipedia if the data has not been supported yet by review studies. In general, don’t rely too much on primary sources for the article. As the applications to human health section continues it becomes more obscure and unrelated to the original topic. Suggest to organize the information appropriately. Cheungd (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:15, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Very nice article. I just have a few suggestions. First, possibly make the article just a bit shorter. Right now, it is very unclear with what you are trying to say in some parts, but also seems a little repetitive too. Cutting down, also makes the article more organized and readers will have an easier time understanding what it is that you are trying to say. On the other hand, some of the topics you talked about could be explained a little more in depth. Explain the first diseases you talked about in the applications to human related diseases part. River blindness, etc, this could help readers who do not have a background in science understand this a bit more clearly. Another area that could be clarified more is the part beginning with cytoplasmic incompatibility. Explain this, but in as few words as possible. Lastly, for the viruses part of the last section, maybe don't include as many of the viruses so that the few you do mention, you can focus on making those in easy to understand detail. Overall I think this article is definitely very nice and very well researched! My main suggestion is to just explain these topics just as if you were explaining to someone who did not have the same science background as you, but with few words. Overall, great job! Slu 2018 (talk)Slu_2018Slu 2018 (talk) 16 November 2015 —Preceding undated comment added 07:09, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Lead
Changed status to C. The lead is nowhere near complete and contains info not in the body - that on neotropical insects.--Iztwoz (talk) 07:02, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Wolbachia used to prevent disease
This section seems unclear on the mechanism(s) by which Wolbachia reduces the spread of disease. The passage
 * "Computational models predict that introducing Wolbachia strains into natural populations will reduce pathogen transmission and reduce overall disease burden.[49] An example includes Wolbachia that can be used to control dengue and malaria by eliminating the older insects that contain more parasites."

makes it seem that the mechanism is primarily that Wolbachia infected mosquitos don't live long enough to become infected with dengue or transmit it. Is this correct? I thought Wolbachia more directly inhibited the reproduction of the dengue virus within a host mosquito. Perhaps the passage means to say that in addition to a direct mechanism, Wolbachia has a ancillary benefit via
 * "Promoting the survival and reproduction of younger insects lessens selection pressure for evolution of resistance".

David McArthur (talk) 20:11, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Metal Gear Solid V
This organism is featured heavily in a plot point in the game Metal Gear Solid V (https://metalgear.fandom.com/wiki/Wolbachia) perhaps an “In fiction” section could be added? Hobbesdream (talk) 18:41, 13 February 2021 (UTC)