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Science 334 (6054): 362-365

Copyright © 2011 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Antimicrobial Peptides Keep Insect Endosymbionts Under Control

Frédéric H. Login,1,2 Séverine Balmand,1,2 Agnès Vallier,1,2 Carole Vincent-Monégat,1,2 Aurélien Vigneron,1,2 Michèle Weiss-Gayet,2,3 Didier Rochat,4 Abdelaziz Heddi1,2,*

Abstract: Vertically transmitted endosymbionts persist for millions of years in invertebrates and play an important role in animal evolution. However, the functional basis underlying the maintenance of these long-term resident bacteria is unknown. We report that the weevil coleoptericin-A (ColA) antimicrobial peptide selectively targets endosymbionts within the bacteriocytes and regulates their growth through the inhibition of cell division. Silencing the colA gene with RNA interference resulted in a decrease in size of the giant filamentous endosymbionts, which escaped from the bacteriocytes and spread into insect tissues. Although this family of peptides is commonly linked with microbe clearance, this work shows that endosymbiosis benefits from ColA, suggesting that long-term host-symbiont coevolution might have shaped immune effectors for symbiont maintenance.

1 INSA-Lyon, INRA, UMR203 BF2I, Biologie Fonctionnelle Insectes et Interactions, F-69621 Villeurbanne, France.
2 Université de Lyon, F-69003 Lyon, France.
3 Université Lyon 1, CNRS UMR5534, Centre de Génétique et de Physiologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire, F-69622 Villeurbanne, France.
4 INRA, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, UMR1272 Physiologie de l’Insecte Signalisation et Communication, F-78026 Versailles, France.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: abdelaziz.heddi{at}insa-lyon.fr

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