TY - JOUR AU - Kikuchi, Yoshitomo AU - Hosokawa, Takahiro AU - Nikoh, Naruo AU - Meng, Xian-Ying AU - Kamagata, Yoichi AU - Fukatsu, Takema PY - 2009 DA - 2009/01/15 TI - Host-symbiont co-speciation and reductive genome evolution in gut symbiotic bacteria of acanthosomatid stinkbugs JO - BMC Biology SP - 2 VL - 7 IS - 1 AB - Host-symbiont co-speciation and reductive genome evolution have been commonly observed among obligate endocellular insect symbionts, while such examples have rarely been identified among extracellular ones, the only case reported being from gut symbiotic bacteria of stinkbugs of the family Plataspidae. Considering that gut symbiotic communities are vulnerable to invasion of foreign microbes, gut symbiotic associations have been thought to be evolutionarily not stable. Stinkbugs of the family Acanthosomatidae harbor a bacterial symbiont in the midgut crypts, the lumen of which is completely sealed off from the midgut main tract, thereby retaining the symbiont in the isolated cryptic cavities. We investigated histological, ecological, phylogenetic, and genomic aspects of the unique gut symbiosis of the acanthosomatid stinkbugs. SN - 1741-7007 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/1741-7007-7-2 DO - 10.1186/1741-7007-7-2 ID - Kikuchi2009 ER -