Wolbachia sp., an alphaproteobacterium associated with reproductive phenotypes, has previously been characterized in the fruit fly pest Anastrepha fraterculus (Diptera: Tephritidae). Two Wolbachia strains (wAfraCast1_A and wAfraCast2_A) have been identified using MLST and HVR as molecular markers. Mating assays have revealed a female-biased sex ratio in flies carrying wAfraCast1_A, while behavioral tests have suggested a protective effect against parasitoids in A. fraterculus larvae harboring wAfraCast2_A. Here, we assembled the wAfraCast2_A genome from a whole-genome project of A. fraterculus morphotype 1 (Argentina).
High-molecular-weight DNA was extracted from a single adult female, and Oxford Nanopore high-throughput genome sequencing was performed. After quality control and filtering of raw reads, a metagenomic approach was followed to obtain de novo assemblies of A. fraterculus and Wolbachia sp. genomes, and a Wolbachia-assigned contig was further analyzed. Quast and BUSCO were used to check the integrity and completeness of a preliminary Wolbachia genome assembly. Annotation was carried out with Prokka and compared to the reference genome of the Wolbachia endosymbiont of Drosophila melanogaster (wMel).
A total of 15,810,325 reads were obtained after adapter removal and quality filtering (10% of the reads were discarded). From these, a total of 1,360 contigs were generated de novo, and 1 contig was assigned to the Wolbachia sp. taxon. A preliminary assembly of the wAfraCast2_A genome revealed a circularized contig of 1,463,312 bp with 93.1% completeness, 0% duplicated genes, and 6.9% missing genes (rickettsiales_odb10 database, n:364). A genome comparison with wMel showed an Average Nucleotide Identity of 99.1% and structural annotation identified 1,701 CDSs, including 633 genes, 907 hypothetical proteins, 3 rRNAs, and 34 tRNAs. These results will enhance our understanding of the Wolbachia–A. fraterculus interaction, including mechanisms influencing host behavior, physiology, and ecological functions, thereby supporting novel pest management strategies.
