A comparative genomics approach to understanding host-endosymbiont interactions

澳大利亚独特的生态系统很容易受到外来害虫的入侵，这些害虫威胁着农业和人类健康。细菌共生体沃尔巴克氏体存在于许多重要的农业和医疗害虫中。我们的研究结果将深入了解沃尔巴克氏体如何在宿主种群中传播，并改善其作为一种削弱昆虫疾病传播的工具的用途，例如作为一种将基因携带到昆虫种群中以限制疾病传播的媒介。我们的研究结果也将为理解寄主-寄生虫的进化、寄主-寄生虫的交流和昆虫的发育过程做出基础贡献，并将引起该领域大量国际研究人员的兴趣。

Australia's unique ecosystems are vulnerable to invasion by exotic pests that threaten agriculture and human health. The bacterial symbiont Wolbachia is found in many major pests of agricultural and medical importance. Our results will give insights into how Wolbachia spreads into host populations and improve its use as a tool to impair insect transmission of disease, e.g. as an agent to carry genes into an insect population that limit disease transmission. Our results will also make fundamental contributions to understanding host-parasite evolution, host-parasite communication, and insect developmental processes, and will be of interest to a large international community of researchers in this field.