期刊名称:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN:0027-8424
电子版ISSN:1091-6490
出版年度:2018
卷号:115
期号:20
页码:5199-5204
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1717934115
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:Obligate symbioses occur when organisms require symbiotic relationships to survive. Some parasitic wasps of caterpillars possess obligate mutualistic viruses called “polydnaviruses.” Along with eggs, wasps inject polydnavirus inside their caterpillar hosts where the hatching larvae develop inside the caterpillar. Polydnaviruses suppress the immune systems of their caterpillar hosts, which enables egg hatch and wasp larval development. It is unknown whether polydnaviruses also manipulate the salivary proteins of the caterpillar, which may affect the elicitation of plant defenses during feeding by the caterpillar. Here, we show that a polydnavirus of the parasitoid Microplitis croceipes , and not the parasitoid larva itself, drives the regulation of salivary enzymes of the caterpillar Helicoverpa zea that are known to elicit tomato plant-defense responses to herbivores. The polydnavirus suppresses glucose oxidase, which is a primary plant-defense elicitor in the saliva of the H. zea caterpillar. By suppressing plant defenses, the polydnavirus allows the caterpillar to grow at a faster rate, thus improving the host suitability for the parasitoid. Remarkably, polydnaviruses manipulate the phenotypes of the wasp, caterpillar, and host plant, demonstrating that polydnaviruses play far more prominent roles in shaping plant–herbivore interactions than ever considered.