Preliminary genome assembly of the Wolbachia endosymbiont of the South American fruit fly, Anastrepha fraterculus sp. 1.

Abstract

Wolbachia sp., an alpha-proteobacterium associated with reproductive phenotypes, has been described with a high prevalence in the South American fruit fly, Anastrepha fraterculus (Diptera: Tephritidae). Two Wolbachia strains (wAfraCast1_A and wAfraCast2_A) have been identified in A. fraterculus by sequencing 15 loci. The phenotypes associated with the presence of Wolbachia in this fly were female-biased sex ratio in flies carrying wAfraCast1_A, and a protective effect against parasitoids in A. fraterculus larvae harboring wAfraCast2_A (Conte, 2021). To enhance the genetic understanding of this bacteria, we assembled the wAfraCast2_A genome using sequence data from a whole-genome project of A. fraterculus morphotype 1 (Argentina).