Wolbachia pipientis wMelPop Genome sequencing and assembly

The endosymbiotic bacterium Wolbachia pipientis typically has only mildly beneficial or mildy deleterious effects on its hosts. The strain wMelPop, however, over-replicates in its host, leading to pathogenesis and early host death. We have sequenced the genome of wMelPop and compared it to the genome of the closely related, non-pathogenic strain wMel.