Intracellular Wolbachia bacteria are obligate, maternally-inherited, endosymbionts found frequently in arthropods and other invertebrates. The wide occurrence of Wolbachia may be partially due to their ability to alter host reproduction via mechanisms including cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), parthenogenesis, feminization and male killing. The molecular mechanisms of Wolbachia/host interaction remain to be elucidated. In this study, Drosophila infected with Wolbachia collected from Wuhan (Hubei province), Liuku (Yunnan Province) and Tianjing, China were treated with tetracycline to delete Wolbachia and the transcriptional expression of dHira was analysed by RT-PCR and quantitative RT-PCR to assay the effect of Wolbachia infection on hosts. The dHira transcript level was significantly increased (P<0.01)after depletion of Wolbachia in D.melanogaster. This indicates that the infection of Wolbachia may down-regulate the transcription of dHira. Considering that dHira is involved in the decondensation of the sperm nucleus after fertilization and the formation of a normal male pronucleus, we suggest that Wolbachia may affect the host reproduction, at least partially, via the dHira pathway .
