A New High-Throughput Tool to Screen Mosquito-Borne Viruses in Zika Virus Endemic/Epidemic Areas

Sara Moutailler,Yvon Perrin,Davy Jiolle,Isabelle Dusfour,Tessa M Visser,Sébastien Boyer,Taissa Pereira Dos Santos,Fabrice Chandre,Johana Restrepo,Frédéric Jourdain,Anubis Vega-Rúa,Merril Wongsokarijo,Xavier De Lamballerie,Amandine Guidez,Sandrine Chantilly,Filipe Vieira Santos De Abreu,Christophe Paupy,Laurence Mousson,Constantianus J M Koenraadt,Alioune Gaye,Marie Vazeille,Diawo Diallo,Mawlouth Diallo,Géraldine Piorkowski,Arnaud Cannet,Veasna Duong,Elodie Devillers,Léna Yousfi ,Ricardo Lourenço De Oliveira ,Anna‐Bella Failloux

doi:10.3390/v11100904

Abstract

Mosquitoes are vectors of arboviruses affecting animal and human health. Arboviruses circulate primarily within an enzootic cycle and recurrent spillovers contribute to the emergence of human-adapted viruses able to initiate an urban cycle involving anthropophilic mosquitoes. The increasing volume of travel and trade offers multiple opportunities for arbovirus introduction in new regions. This scenario has been exemplified recently with the Zika pandemic. To incriminate a mosquito as vector of a pathogen, several criteria are required such as the detection of natural infections in mosquitoes. In this study, we used a high-throughput chip based on the BioMark™ Dynamic arrays system capable of detecting 64 arboviruses in a single experiment. A total of 17,958 mosquitoes collected in Zika-endemic/epidemic countries (Brazil, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Suriname, Senegal, and Cambodia) were analyzed. Here we show that this new tool can detect endemic and epidemic viruses in different mosquito species in an epidemic context. Thus, this fast and low-cost method can be suggested as a novel epidemiological surveillance tool to identify circulating arboviruses.

Highlights

The World Health Organization stated in February 2016 that Zika infection was considered as a public health emergency of international concern [1] opening a new chapter in the history of vector-borne diseases
CDNA pre-amplification was included in the assay. This step enabled detection of all positive controls (95 primer/probe sets tested on 37 viral RNAs) via Taqman real-time PCRs on a LightCycler® 480 (LC480) apparatus
Specificity of 54 assays was not fully tested in the absence of their respective positive controls. These designs did not show any cross-reaction with RNA positive controls from other viruses

Summary

Introduction

The World Health Organization stated in February 2016 that Zika infection was considered as a public health emergency of international concern [1] opening a new chapter in the history of vector-borne diseases. Arboviruses are viruses transmitted among vertebrate hosts by arthropod vectors. Successful transmission of an arbovirus relies on a complex life cycle in the vector, which after midgut infection and dissemination, is released in saliva for active transmission to the vertebrate host [2]. Most arboviruses possess an RNA genome and are mainly transmitted by mosquitoes [3]. While acute infections in vertebrate hosts are typically self-limiting, arboviruses establish persistent infections in arthropods granting a central role as a viral reservoir to the vector [4]

Methods

Results

Conclusion