Wolbachia: A Bug’s Life in Another Bug

摘要

Wolbachia: A Bug's Life in An-other Bug is timely and useful for understanding this bacterial genus. This book covers all aspects of Wol-bachia organisms from basic science and history to medicine and veterinary science. The authors are the most re-nowned in their fi eld.These bacteria live intracellularly (similar to Rickettsia spp.) in arthro-pods or helminths and manipulate their hosts and progeny. They can se-lect specifi c partners for their infected hosts and favor parthenogenesis or in ovo conversion from male to female. These bacteria were identifi ed in 1924 in arthropods and are a paradigm of host–bacteria relationships. Wolbachia organisms became noteworthy in trop-ical medicine when they were found in nematode worms, specifi cally those causing fi lariasis. Wolbachia bacteria manipulate the fertility of most fi larial worms; treating fi lariasis patients with antimicrobial drugs results in elimi-nation of Wolbachia organisms and the microfi laremia. Unexpectedly, doxycycline was also found to kill the worm. Doxycycline could now be paradoxically recommended to treat certain cases of fi lariases