Nature lessons: the whitefly bacterial endosymbiont is a minimal amino acid factory with unusual energetics

Abstract

Bacterial lineages that establish obligate symbiotic associations with insect hosts are known to possess highly reduced genomes with streamlined metabolic functions that are commonly focused on amino acid and vitamin synthesis. We constructed a genome-scale metabolic model of the whitefly bacterial endosymbiont Candidatus Portiera aleyrodidarum to study the energy production capabilities using stoichiometric analysis. Strikingly, the results suggest that the energetic metabolism of the bacterial endosymbiont relies on the use of pathways related to the synthesis of amino acids and carotenoids. A deeper insight showed that the ATP production via carotenoid synthesis may also have a potential role in the regulation of amino acid production. The coupling of energy production to anabolism suggest that minimization of metabolic networks as a consequence of genome size reduction does not necessarily limit the biosynthetic potential of obligate endosymbionts.