A viral metagenomic analysis reveals rich viral abundance and diversity in mosquitoes from pig farms

Abstract

Mosquitoes harbour a diversity of viruses and are responsible for several mosquito‐borne viral diseases of humans and animals, thereby leading to major public health concerns, and significant economic losses across the globe. Viral metagenomics offers a great opportunity for bulk analysis of viral genomes retrieved directly from environmental samples. In this study, we performed a viral metagenomic analysis of five pools of mosquitoes belonging to Aedes, Anopheles and Culex species, collected from different pig farms in the vicinity of Shanghai, China, to explore the viral community carried by mosquitoes. The resulting metagenomic data revealed that viral community in the mosquitoes was highly diverse and varied in abundance among pig farms, which comprised of more than 48 viral taxonomic families, specific to vertebrates, invertebrates, plants, fungi, bacteria and protozoa. In addition, a considerable number of viral reads were related to viruses that are not classified by host. The read sequences related to animal viruses included parvoviruses, anelloviruses, circoviruses, flavivirus, rhabdovirus and seadornaviruses, which might be taken up by mosquitoes from viremic animal hosts during blood feeding. Notably, sample G1 contained the most abundant sequence related to Banna virus, which is of public health interest because it causes encephalitis in humans. Furthermore, non‐classified viruses also shared considerable virus sequences in all the samples, presumably belonging to unexplored virus category. Overall, the present study provides a comprehensive knowledge of diverse viral populations carried by mosquitoes at pig farms, which is a potential source of diseases for mammals including humans and animals. These viral metagenomic data are valuable for assessment of emerging and re‐emerging viral epidemics.

Highly Sensitive Virome Characterization of Aedes aegypti and Culex pipiens Complex from Central Europe and the Caribbean Reveals Potential for Interspecies Viral Transmission

“…In particular, mosquitoes of the Aedes and Culex genera are well adapted to human environments, making them the most important transmission vectors for arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) such as Dengue virus, Zika virus, or West Nile virus [ 1 ]. Nevertheless, arboviruses sensu stricto are not the only viruses that replicate in mosquito vectors [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ].…”

Stability of the Virome in Lab- and Field-Collected Aedes albopictus Mosquitoes across Different Developmental Stages and Possible Core Viruses in the Publicly Available Virome Data of Aedes Mosquitoes

“…Some studies have performed viral metagenomics on field mosquitoes collected from different countries (including the United States, Puerto Rico, China, Kenya, Australia, Sweden, etc. ), mainly focusing on novel virus discovery (16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24). Some newly discovered mosquito-specific viruses (MSVs) have been proposed as future biological control agents against arboviruses (25)(26)(27) or as novel vaccine platforms (27) or used in diagnostic assays in chimeric virus formation with structural protein genes from arboviruses (27).…”

An expert opinion assessment of blood‐feeding arthropods based on their capacity to transmit African swine fever virus in Metropolitan France

“…Therefore, their role in the transmission of ASFV under field conditions seems possible only in very specific conditions. Concerning mosquitoes, Hameed et al (2019) showed that mosquitoes of the genera Aedes, Anopheles and Culex could feed on pigs. In another study, ASFV DNA sequences were identified in mosquito samples collected from an Estonian farm where pigs were infected with ASFV (Herm, Tummeleht, Jürison, Vilem, & Viltrop, 2019).…”