Super- or Single Infection: Wolbachia Supergrouping of Wild Mosquito Populations from Varied Location Types in Peninsular Malaysia

Abstract

Wolbachia has the ability to cause reproductive abnormalities in infected hosts including cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI). CI is activated when there are multiple Wolbachia supergroups or strains infection present in insect populations. Wolbachia-transinfected mosquitoes have been used widely in some countries as a biological control agent. In order to ensure a successful Wolbachia establishment, it is important to determine the diversity of natural Wolbachia present in the wild mosquito populations. The adults and immature stages of mosquitoes were collected from urban, suburban and rural areas and were reared into adults and identified to species before being subjected to molecular analysis. We found that 22% out of 222 males and 34.6% of 543 females tested were carrying Wolbachia based on PCR amplification of the Wolbachia 16S rDNA genes technique. PCR digestion for Wolbachia supergrouping showed that most of the Ae. albopictus were superinfected with Wolbachia (52.41%), whereas 21% and 28% of the positive samples were singly infected with supergroup A and B, respectively. There is an indication that prevalence of Wolbachia varies between mosquito populations in different areas. However, further studies to incorporate both PCR amplication of the Wolbachia 16S rDNA and wsp genes with bigger sample size should be performed to measure exact infection of Wolbachia in Malaysia. The baseline data on diversity of Wolbachia supergroups is expected to facilitate Wolbachia strategy by helping us to better understand the patterns and impact of the bacteria’s transmission in the environment.