Insect-Specific Viruses Detected in Laboratory Mosquito Colonies and Their Potential Implications for Experiments Evaluating Arbovirus Vector Competence

Bolling, Bethany G.; Vasilakis, Nikos; Guzmán, Hilda; Widen, Steven G.; Wood, Thomas G.; Popov, Vsevolod L.; Thangamani, Saravanan; Tesh, Robert B.

doi:10.4269/ajtmh.14-0330

Cited by 61 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 45 publications

(68 reference statements)

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“…Indeed, given the very high prevalence of these viruses, it seems intuitively unlikely that these viruses are associated with severe disease in their hosts, and we propose that the most likely status for these viruses is either sublethal infection or commensal. This is supported by the observation that viruses have been detected in both laboratory mosquito colonies and insect cell lines that show little loss of fitness (29,30), although this clearly requires additional study.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 54%

High-Resolution Metatranscriptomics Reveals the Ecological Dynamics of Mosquito-Associated RNA Viruses in Western Australia

Shī

Neville

Nicholson

et al. 2017

J Virol

170

230

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Mosquitoes harbor a high diversity of RNA viruses, including many that impact human health. Despite a growing effort to describe the extent and nature of the mosquito virome, little is known about how these viruses persist, spread, and interact with both their hosts and other microbes. To address this issue we performed a metatranscriptomics analysis of 12 Western Australian mosquito populations structured by species and geographic location. Our results identified the complete genomes of 24 species of RNA viruses from a diverse range of viral families and orders, among which 19 are newly described. Comparisons of viromes revealed a striking difference between the two mosquito genera, with viromes of mosquitoes of the Aedes genus exhibiting substantially less diversity and lower abundances than those of mosquitoes of the Culex genus, within which the viral abundance reached 16.87% of the total non-rRNA. In addition, there was little overlap in viral diversity between the two genera, although the viromes were very similar among the three Culex species studied, suggesting that the host taxon plays a major role in structuring virus diversity. In contrast, we found no evidence that geographic location played a major role in shaping RNA virus diversity, and several viruses discovered here exhibited high similarity (95 to 98% nucleotide identity) to those from Indonesia and China. Finally, using abundance-level and phylogenetic relationships, we were able to distinguish potential mosquito viruses from those present in coinfecting bacteria, fungi, and protists. In sum, our metatranscriptomics approach provides important insights into the ecology of mosquito RNA viruses. IMPORTANCE Studies of virus ecology have generally focused on individual viral species. However, recent advances in bulk RNA sequencing make it possible to utilize metatranscriptomic approaches to reveal both complete virus diversity and the relative abundance of these viruses. We used such a metatranscriptomic approach to determine key aspects of the ecology of mosquito viruses in Western Australia. Our results show that RNA viruses are some of the most important components of the mosquito transcriptome, and we identified 19 new virus species from a diverse set of virus families. A key result was that host genetic background plays a more important role in shaping virus diversity than sampling location, with Culex species harboring more viruses at higher abundance than those from Aedes mosquitoes.KEYWORDS Australia, ecology, evolution, mosquito, phylogeny, transcriptomics, virome

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 54%

High-Resolution Metatranscriptomics Reveals the Ecological Dynamics of Mosquito-Associated RNA Viruses in Western Australia

Shī

Neville

Nicholson

et al. 2017

J Virol

170

230

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“…ISVs have been detected in both laboratory mosquito colonies (Bolling et al, 2015a) and insect cell lines in which they were initially discovered (Stollar and Thomas, 1975). One study found that colonies of mosquitoes from different geographic locations were infected with multiple ISVs, including Aedes flavivirus (AeFV) and CFAV (Bolling et al, 2015a).…”

Section: Impact Of Isvs On Experimental Studies-in Vitro and Lab Colomentioning

confidence: 99%

Insect-Specific Viruses

Roundy

Azar

Rossi

et al. 2017

Advances in Virus Research

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“…The available data suggest that ISFs are maintained in their mosquito hosts by vertical transmission and without causing deleterious effects. 9,38,39 In this regard, they behave like symbionts and constitute part of the insect's microbiome. Therefore, it seems likely that these symbiotic viruses may affect vector competence for arboviruses.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…54 CFAV also have been isolated repeatedly from pools of male as well as female mosquitoes, 53,54 suggesting that the virus is maintained in nature by vertical transmission. Bolling and others 39 described a laboratory colony of Ae. albopictus, established from adults collected in Galveston, TX, that was persistently infected with CFAV; the virus was present in most of the mosquitoes of both sexes generation after generation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Mercadeo Virus: A Novel Mosquito-Specific Flavivirus from Panama

Carrera¹,

Guzmán²,

Beltran³

et al. 2015

The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

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Abstract. Viruses in the genus Flavivirus (family Flaviviridae) include many arthropod-borne viruses of public health and veterinary importance. However, during the past two decades an explosion of novel insect-specific flaviviruses (ISFs), some closely related to vertebrate pathogens, have been discovered. Although many flavivirus pathogens of vertebrates have been isolated from naturally infected mosquitoes in Panama, ISFs have not previously been reported from the country. This report describes the isolation and characterization of a novel ISF, tentatively named Mercadeo virus (MECDV), obtained from Culex spp. mosquitoes collected in Panama. Two MECDV isolates were sequenced and cluster phylogenetically with cell-fusing agent virus (CFAV) and Nakiwogo virus (NAKV) to form a distinct lineage within the insect-specific group of flaviviruses.

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Insect-Specific Viruses Detected in Laboratory Mosquito Colonies and Their Potential Implications for Experiments Evaluating Arbovirus Vector Competence

Cited by 61 publications

References 45 publications

High-Resolution Metatranscriptomics Reveals the Ecological Dynamics of Mosquito-Associated RNA Viruses in Western Australia

High-Resolution Metatranscriptomics Reveals the Ecological Dynamics of Mosquito-Associated RNA Viruses in Western Australia

Insect-Specific Viruses

Mercadeo Virus: A Novel Mosquito-Specific Flavivirus from Panama

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