Intracellular symbiont with vertical transmission that is widespread across insect orders
We describe the widespread occurrence of a clade of hitherto undescribed Enterobacterales symbionts that we identified across six insect orders, i.e., Coleoptera, Diptera, Ephemeroptera, Hemiptera, Lepidoptera, and Siphonaptera. We characterize the endosymbionts (ES) intracellular localization and tissue tropism across multiple host taxa, assess its prevalence in host populations, and provide functional insights based on genome sequences of the symbionts across 16 host taxa. We propose the new genus >Candidatus Dolus< for these bacteria in reference to the spirit of trickery and disguise from Greek and Roman mythology, based on the long evasion of the symbiont from scientific investigation. As the symbiont likely also evades host immunity, we anticipate that future studies may provide a double meaning to the name.