Abstract
BackgroundRecent reports reveal the presence of Wolbachia in Ae. aegypti. Our study presents additional support for Wolbachia infection in Ae. aegypti by screening field-collected adult mosquitoes using two Wolbachia-specific molecular makers.MethodsA total of 672 Ae. aegypti adult mosquitoes were collected from May 2014 to January 2015 in Metropolitan Manila. Each individual sample was processed and screened for the presence of Wolbachia by selected markers, Wolbachia-specific 16S rDNA and its surface protein (wsp), under optimized PCR conditions and sequenced.ResultsTotals of 113 (16.8%) and 89 (13.2%) individual mosquito samples were determined to be infected with Wolbachia using the wsp and 16S rDNA markers, respectively. The Ae. aegpyti wsp sample sequences were similar or identical to five known Wolbachia strains belonging to supergroups A and B while the majority of 16S rDNA sample sequences were similar to strains belonging to supergroup B. Overall, 80 (11.90%) individual mosquito samples showed positive amplifications in both markers and 69% showed congruence in supergroup identification (supergroup B).ConclusionsBy utilizing two Wolbachia-specific molecular makers, our study demonstrated the presence of Wolbachia from individual Ae. aegypti samples. Our results showed a low Wolbachia infection rate and inferred the detected strains belong to either supergroups A and B.
Highlights
Recent reports reveal the presence of Wolbachia in Ae. aegypti
A few individual samples (n = 5) were shown to be similar to Wolbachia strains found in supergroups C, D and J based on 16S rDNA
This observation was reported in one of the metabarcoding studies that showed sequences of Wolbachia from Dirofilaria immitis. When these 16S rDNA results were compared to the wsp results in our study, it showed the Wolbachia wsp sample sequence of the same mosquito individuals belonged to supergroup B
Summary
Recent reports reveal the presence of Wolbachia in Ae. aegypti. Our study presents additional support for Wolbachia infection in Ae. aegypti by screening field-collected adult mosquitoes using two Wolbachia-specific molecular makers. It is estimated to be naturally present in 60–65% of known species [4]. The pathogenic effects of Wolbachia in its host are Previous studies claimed that medically important mosquitoes such as Culex spp., Mansonia spp., and Aedes albopictus were naturally infected with Wolbachia, whereas Ae. aegypti was not [7,8,9,10,11,12]. Numerous studies contradict this claim and present evidence of natural Wolbachia infection in Ae. aegypti, including recent studies from Malaysia [14], India [15] and the USA [16].
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