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A Wolbachia coinfection in the common bed bug

Hillary E Davis1,2, Joseph Torres3, Meaghan J Adler3

  • 1Department of Emergency Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, United States.

ISME Communications
|August 11, 2026
PubMed

Insights

Bed bugs harbor a second Wolbachia strain (wChem) alongside their essential nutritional symbiont. This discovery reveals a hidden layer of bed bug biology impacting their spread and control.

Area of Science:

  • Microbiology
  • Entomology
  • Genetics

Background:

  • The common bed bug (Cimex lectularius) depends on a mutualistic Wolbachia strain (wCle) for essential B vitamins absent in human blood.
  • Bed bugs are significant global pests, impacting public health and requiring effective control strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the microbial communities of hospital-collected bed bugs.
  • To identify and characterize additional symbionts beyond the known nutritional mutualist.

Main Methods:

  • Metatranscriptomic and metagenomic sequencing of bed bug samples.
  • Bioinformatic analysis of publicly available genomic data.
  • Phylogenetic analysis to determine symbiont distribution and host-switching events.

Main Results:

  • A second Wolbachia strain, wChem, was identified in some Cimex lectularius individuals.
  • wChem is globally distributed in bed bugs and has potentially recently transferred between Cimex lectularius and Cimex hemipterus.
  • wChem expresses a cifA/B operon, indicative of cytoplasmic incompatibility, a reproductive manipulation strategy.

Conclusions:

  • Bed bugs can harbor a coinfection of a nutritional mutualist (wCle) and a potentially manipulative symbiont (wChem).
  • This coinfection represents a previously unrecognized aspect of bed bug biology.
  • Understanding this coinfection has significant implications for bed bug evolution, global spread, and the development of novel control methods.
Keywords:
Wolbachiabed bugsbiocontrolhorizontal transmissionsymbiosis

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