The Jekyll and Hyde symbiont: Could Wolbachia be a nutritional mutualist?

Abstract

The most common intracellular symbiont on the planet—Wolbachia pipientis—is infamous largely for the reproductive manipulations induced in its host. However, more recent evidence suggests that this bacterium may also serve as a nutritional mutualist in certain host backgrounds and for certain metabolites. We performed a large-scale analysis of conserved gene content across all sequenced Wolbachia genomes to infer potential nutrients made by these symbionts. We review and critically evaluate the prior research supporting a beneficial role for Wolbachia and suggest future experiments to test hypotheses of metabolic provisioning.