Does Wolbachia really grow inside Saccharomyces?
Obligate intracellularity is a bit like unculturability – dogma that was popular decades ago but is now being questioned given advances in our technology and methodologies for cultivation. Who wouldn’t be inspired by the recent ability to cultivate Coxiella or Hamiltonella ? Remember the 99.9% uncultivable microbes? Many studies ( here and here , for example) have revealed that it was our methods - the media conditions - that limited our ability to culture many microbes. Yet, for my favorite bacterium, Wolbachia pipientis, obligate intracellularity is like a badge of honor (or shame!); I cannot tell you how many times I’ve written obligate intracellular in grant proposals and manuscripts to describe the bug. Wolbachia, you see, is part of the ancient intracellular Rickettsiales clade - including Ehrlichia, Anaplasma, Rickettsia, and none of these microbes have been cultivated outside of host cells. They have reduced genomes and generally infect arthropods - although s