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Analysis of the prevalence rates of the endosymbiotic bacterium of the Wolbachia genus in the populations of corn borers of the Ostrinia genus was carried out. Samples of genomic DNA were extracted from field-collected larvae. The PCR analysis for the presence of Wolbachia infection was performed independently using three diagnostic loci: 16SrRNA, gatB, and fbpA. A positive signal for Wolbachia was obtained for 13.5% of the Ostrinia nubilalis larvae (N = 141) and 31.9% of the Ostrinia scapulalis larvae (N = 138). The infection rate ranged from 2.9% (N = 34) to 65.8% (N = 38) in different geographical populations. At the same time, a significantly higher infection rate of O. scapulalis than O. nubilalis was observed in three out of four habitats. It was also found that the Wolbachia infection was more common for O. scapulalis individuals feeding on hemp than for those collected from mugwort.

A comparison of the small subunit rRNA gene sequences of the microsporidian isolates from corn borers of the Ostrinia genus from Russia and Belarus indicates that they belong to the Nosema pyrausta species. In order to analyze genetic polymorphism, the nucleotide sequences of the molecular clones of the rRNA intergenic spacer (IGS) of the N. pyrausta isolates from Ostrinia nubilalis and Ostrinia scapulalis (Krasnodar territory), as well as from O. nubilalis (Gomel region, Belarus), are determined. Based on the information obtained and available in Genbank, a high level of divergence of the IGS locus between the isolates of different species and populations of microsporidia, as well as between the molecular clones within individual isolates of parasites, is shown.