Amplicon sequencing-based survey of symbioses in the cicada genus Tettigades

Sap-feeding insects rely on specialized microbial symbionts for biosynthesis of essential nutrients deficient in the diet. We observed that in many cicadas, their ancient nutritional endosymbiotic bacteria, Candidatus Hodgkinia cicadicola, has split into a complex of distinct but interdependent cellular lineages that together perform the same set of functions as the single ancestral symbiont. We have surveyed Hodgkinia across populations of multiple species of cicadas from the genus Tettigades. One of the experiments was next-generation sequencing of amplicons for genes that are universally retained in genomes of all Hodgkinia lineages. The current BioProject groups BioSamples that correspond to different cicada individuals used for the experiment.