Abstract
BackgroundWolbachia wMel is the most commonly used strain in rear and release strategies for Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that aim to inhibit the transmission of arboviruses such as dengue, Zika, Chikungunya and yellow fever. However, the long-term establishment of wMel in natural Ae. aegypti populations raises concerns that interactions between Wolbachia wMel and Ae. aegypti may lead to changes in the host genome, which could affect useful attributes of Wolbachia that allow it to invade and suppress disease transmission.ResultsWe applied an evolve-and-resequence approach to study genome-wide genetic changes in Ae. aegypti from the Cairns region, Australia, where Wolbachia wMel was first introduced more than 10 years ago. Mosquito samples were collected at three different time points in Gordonvale, Australia, covering the phase before (2010) and after (2013 and 2018) Wolbachia releases. An additional three locations where Wolbachia replacement happened at different times across the last decade were also sampled in 2018. We found that the genomes of mosquito populations mostly remained stable after Wolbachia release, with population differences tending to reflect the geographic location of the populations rather than Wolbachia infection status. However, outlier analysis suggests that Wolbachia may have had an influence on some genes related to immune response, development, recognition and behavior.ConclusionsAe. aegypti populations remained geographically distinct after Wolbachia wMel releases in North Australia despite their Wolbachia infection status. At some specific genomic loci, we found signs of selection associated with Wolbachia, suggesting potential evolutionary impacts can happen in the future and further monitoring is warranted.
Highlights
Wolbachia wMel is the most commonly used strain in rear and release strategies for Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that aim to inhibit the transmission of arboviruses such as dengue, Zika, Chikungunya and yellow fever
Genetic variation in Aedes aegypti populations Aedes aegypti were collected from four sites around Cairns, Australia, at different times pre- and post-Wolbachia releases (Fig. 1, Table 1)
Wolbachia wMel-infected Ae. aegypti mosquitoes have been released successfully in the field to help reduce the transmission of arboviruses, but interactions between wMel and Ae. aegypti could result in adaptation [55, 56], altering virus blocking efficiency [19, 57], host fecundity [21] and insecticide resistance [58]
Summary
Wolbachia wMel is the most commonly used strain in rear and release strategies for Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that aim to inhibit the transmission of arboviruses such as dengue, Zika, Chikungunya and yellow fever. Wolbachia-infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes have been released in multiple locations of the world [1,2,3] to help reduce the transmission of arboviruses such as dengue, Zika, Chikungunya and yellow fever [4,5,6]. Infected females produce viable offspring when they mate with uninfected males or males infected by the same Wolbachia strain, and these offspring are infected [8] This allows Wolbachia to invade and be self-sustained in a population but may increase population divergence because it can reduce the “effective migration rate” [9, 10] between infected and uninfected populations. Wolbachia can impact mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation through indirect linkage disequilibrium [11,12,13]
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