Silencing of <i>Bma-aldolase-2</i> decreases <i>Wolbachia</i> load in adult female worms and induces apoptosis in developing embryos.

<p>(A) qPCR analysis of the number (#) of <i>wsp</i> copies per adult female worm at the end of the RNAi experiments. Significant reduction of <i>Wolbachia</i> load was only detected in females treated with siRNA specifically targeting <i>Bma-aldolase-2</i> (siALDO-2) as compared to RNAi-control (worms were treated with siRNA-GFP; <i>p</i> < 0.01) or untreated worms (<i>p</i> < 0.01). (B) TUNEL assay for developing embryos extracted from control (left) or treated with siRNA specific to <i>Bma-aldolase-2</i> (right). Green represents apoptotic nuclei and all nuclei were also co-stained with a DNA-specific dye (propidium iodide, red), magnification 60X. (C) Number of apoptotic embryos extracted from females and number of microfilaria (Mf) released from control females and females after treatment with siRNAs. The increase in the proportion of apoptotic embryos in worms treated with siRNA specifically targeting <i>Bma-aldolase-2</i> (siALDO-2) was significant as compared to the RNAi-control (<i>p</i> < 0.05) or untreated (<i>p</i> < 0.05) worms. The number of Mf released by worms treated with siRNA specifically targeting <i>Bma-aldolase-2</i> (siALDO-2) was about 50% of those released by RNAi-control (<i>p</i> < 0.05) or untreated (<i>p</i> < 0.05) worms.