Abstract
AgDNV is a powerful gene transduction tool and potential biological control agent for Anopheles mosquitoes. Using a GFP reporter virus system, we investigated AgDNV host range specificity in four arthropod cell lines (derived from An. gambiae, Aedes albopictus and Drosophila melanogaster) and six mosquito species from 3 genera (An. gambiae, An. arabiensis, An. stephensi, Ae. albopictus, Ae. aegypti and Culex tarsalis). In vitro, efficient viral invasion, replication and GFP expression was only observed in MOS55 An. gambiae cells. In vivo, high levels of GFP were observed in An. gambiae mosquitoes. Intermediate levels of GFP were observed in the closely related species An. arabiensis. Low levels of GFP were observed in An. stephensi, Ae. albopictus, Ae. aegypti and Cx. tarsalis. These results suggest that AgDNV is a specific gene transduction tool for members of the An. gambiae species complex, and could be potentially developed into a biocontrol agent with minimal off-target effects.
Highlights
Densoviruses (DNVs) are non-enveloped single-stranded DNA viruses in the family Parvoviridae
Using quantitative PCR (qPCR), levels of viral DNA copies of vUTRAcGFP matched results obtained by flow cytometry (Fig. 1C)
Anopheles gambiae densovirus (AgDNV) was originally isolated from An. gambiae Sua5B cells[9], no fluorescence or viral DNA was detected after vUTRAcGFP infection of this cell line
Summary
Densoviruses (DNVs) are non-enveloped single-stranded DNA viruses in the family Parvoviridae. Many DNVs have been isolated from various laboratory and field mosquitoes and cell lines[1,7,8,9]. AgDNV exhibits negligible pathology in An. gambiae[11]. These features make AgDNV an attractive candidate for paratransgenesis, an approach that renders insects refractory to pathogens by using transgenic microbes[12,13,14]. Densovirus host range has been studied with the Aedes aegypti densovirus (AeDNV) and Aedes albopictus densovirus (AalDNV). We used this system to investigate the host range of AgDNV in multiple invertebrate cell lines and mosquito species
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