Abdelaziz Heddi
| vCard Abdelaziz Heddi | |
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| Affiliation: | UMR INRA/INSA de Lyon |
| Phone: | 33(0) 472 43 88 68 |
Most of insects subsisting on nutrient-deficient or unbalanced diets, such as plant sap (aphid, psyllid, whitefly, mealybug) and cereal grains (Sitophilus weevil), have integrated intracellular bacteria within specialized host cells, the bacteriocytes that differentiate ontologically with the presence of bacteria only. Neither endosymbionts are cultivable in vitro, nor insect succeeds to develop without symbiotic bacteria. Intracellular bacteria, through their interaction with the bacteriocyte, supplement the host's diet with limiting nutrients increasing thereby host physiological traits and allowing insects to thrive and to diversify on nutrient limited ecological niches. We use the cereal weevil Sitophilus spp. (Dryothoridae, Coleoptera) to investigate the three main following projects: 1- Host-symbiont molecular and immune signaling. This project aims to decipher the molecular "dialogue" between bacteria and the host that leads to the establishment and the maintenance of intracellular symbiosis 2- Physiological impacts of bacteria on the insect development and reproduction 3- Evolutionary aspects that characterize intracellular life history. This includes bacterial molecular features as well as host-bacterial phylogeny ad evolution.
