Genome-wide fly cell RNAi screen related to Wolbachia infection

White PM, Serbus LR, Debec A, Codina A, Bray W, Guichet A, Lokey RS, Sullivan W. Reliance of Wolbachia on High Rates of Host Proteolysis Revealed by a Genome-Wide RNAi Screen of Drosophila Cells. Genetics. 2017 Feb 3. pii: genetics.116.198903. PMID: 28159754.

From the abstract: "Wolbachia are gram-negative, obligate, intracellular bacteria carried by a majority of insect species worldwide. Here we use a Wolbachia-infected Drosophila cell line and genome-wide RNAi screening to identify host factors that influence Wolbachia titer. .. we identified 36 candidate genes that dramatically reduced Wolbachia titer and 41 that increased Wolbachia titer. ... knockdown of 7 genes in the host ubiquitin and proteolysis pathways significantly reduced Wolbachia titer. To test the in vivo relevance of these results, we found that drug and mutant inhibition of proteolysis reduced levels of Wolbachia in the Drosophila oocyte ... Given Wolbachia lack essential amino acid biosynthetic pathways, the reliance of Wolbachia on high rates of host proteolysis via ubiquitination and the ERAD pathways may be a key mechanism for provisioning Wolbachia with amino acids. In addition, the reliance of Wolbachia on the ERAD pathway and disruption of ER morphology suggests a previously unsuspected mechanism for Wolbachia's potent ability to prevent RNA virus replication."