Genome reduction and potential metabolic complementation of the dual endosymbionts in the whitefly Bemisia tabaci

Background The whitefly Bemisia tabaci is an important agricultural pest with global distribution. This phloem-sap feeder harbors a primary symbiont, “Candidatus Portiera aleyrodidarum”, which compensates for the deficient nutritional composition of its food sources, and a variety of secondary symbionts. Interestingly, all of these secondary symbionts are found in co-localization with the primary symbiont within the same bacteriocytes, which should favor the evolution of strong interactions between symbionts. Results In this paper, we analyzed the genome sequences of the primary symbiont Portiera and of the secondary symbiont Hamiltonella in the B. tabaci Mediterranean (MED) species in orde…