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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Parlier, California » San Joaquin Valley Agricultural Sciences Center » Crop Diseases, Pests and Genetics Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #358052

Research Project: Identification of Novel Management Strategies for Key Pests and Pathogens of Grapevine with Emphasis on the Xylella Fastidiosa Pathosystem

Location: Crop Diseases, Pests and Genetics Research

Title: Prokaryotic community of a glassy-winged sharpshooter infected with Xylella fastidiosa

Author
item Chen, Jianchi
item Krugner, Rodrigo
item BAO, MINLI - South China Agricultural University

Submitted to: CDFA Pierce's Disease Control Program Research Symposium
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/18/2018
Publication Date: 12/18/2018
Citation: Chen, J., Krugner, R., Bao, M. 2018. Prokaryotic community of a glassy-winged sharpshooter infected with Xylella fastidiosa. CDFA Pierce's Disease Control Program Research Symposium. p. 168.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Glassy-winged sharpshooter (GWSS, Homalodisca vitripennis) transmits Xylella fastidiosa that causes Pierce’s disease of grapevine. Insects are known to harbor endosymbionts/microorganisms that can confer various fitness advantages on the host including nutritional upgrading and enhancement of pathogen resistance. Knowledge on GWSS microbial communities may help elucidate many biological processes in GWSS and provide the baseline information needed to develop new control strategies. However, research on GWSS microbial communities remains limited, particularly in characterization of insect prokaryotic communities through next generation sequencing (NGS) technology. Adult GWSS from a laboratory colony established in 2018 with individuals originated from Bakersfield, CA, were allowed a 2-month acquisition access period (AAP) on a grapevine infected with X. fastidiosa (strain Stag’s Leap). After the AAP, total DNA was extracted and subjected to NGS (Illumina HiSeq3000, 2x100). A total of 316,193,544 short sequence reads (101 bp per read), or 31,935,547,944 bp, were generated. De novo assembling was performed and generated 550,712 contigs ranging from 500 to 341,870 bp. The circular GWSS mitochondrial genome (15,301 pb) was identified. The whole genome sequence of X. fastidiosa was assembled through reference mapping. Besides X. fastidiosa, preliminary metagenomic analysis (BLASTn against GenBank nr database and Kaiju software) confirmed the presence of “Candidatus Baumannia cicadellinicola” and “Candidatus Sulcia muelleri” in high abundance. In addition, other prokaryotic bacteria (tentatively at genus level) supported by >100,000 sequence reads were: Wolbachia, Acinetobacter, Chryseobacterium, Comamonas, Sphingobacterium, and Vibrio. Further research will refine the taxonomy nature of these bacteria and possibly more previously unknown bacteria, along with the generation of a draft genome sequence of GWSS from California.