Intracellular Interactions Between Arboviruses and Wolbachia in Aedes aegypti

Abstract

Aedes aegypti is inherently susceptible to arboviruses. The geographical expansion of this vector host species has led to the persistence of Dengue, Zika, and Chikungunya human infections. These viruses take advantage of the mosquito’s cell to create an environment conducive for their growth. Arboviral infection triggers transcriptomic and protein dysregulation in Ae. aegypti and in effect, host antiviral mechanisms are compromised. Currently, there are no existing vaccines able to protect human hosts from these infections and thus, vector control strategies such as Wolbachia mass release program is regarded as a viable option. Considerable evidence demonstrates how the presence of Wolbachia interferes with arboviruses by decreasing host cytoskeletal proteins and lipids essential for arboviral infection. Also, Wolbachia strengthens host immunity, cellular regeneration and causes the expression of microRNAs which could potentially be involved in virus inhibition. However, variation in the magnitude of Wolbachia’s pathogen blocking effect that is not due to the endosymbiont’s density has been recently reported. Furthermore, the cellular mechanisms involved in this phenotype differs depending on Wolbachia strain and host species. This prompts the need to explore the cellular interactions between Ae. aegypti-arboviruses-Wolbachia and how different Wolbachia strains overall affect the mosquito’s cell. Understanding what happens at the cellular and molecular level will provide evidence on the sustainability of Wolbachia vector control.

Arbovirus Epidemiology: The Mystery of Unnoticed Epidemics in Ghana, West Africa

“…A few studies reported the interference of endosymbiont bacteria Wolbachia with arboviruses by decreasing host cytoskeletal proteins and lipids essential for arboviral infection. Wolbachia was found to increase host immunity, cellular regeneration and causes the expression of microRNAs, which could potentially be involved in virus inhibition [ 70 ]. This implies that Wolbachia has antiviral properties via its pathogen-blocking effect to reduce the competence of mosquitoes for arbovirus transmission [ 70 , 71 ].…”

“…Wolbachia was found to increase host immunity, cellular regeneration and causes the expression of microRNAs, which could potentially be involved in virus inhibition [ 70 ]. This implies that Wolbachia has antiviral properties via its pathogen-blocking effect to reduce the competence of mosquitoes for arbovirus transmission [ 70 , 71 ]. Currently, it is confirmed that mosquitoes can be infected in nature by Wolbachia .…”

Bird species define the relationship between West Nile viremia and infectiousness to Culex pipiens mosquitoes

“…There can be many factors that influence the efficiency of mosquito arbovirus transmissionperhaps none so important as the quantity of virus ingested by mosquitoes, which in turn is determined by the level and duration of viremia in the host [4]. Other modulating factors may include vector factors (e.g., vector competence [6], feeding preferences [7]), environmental factors (e.g., temperature [8,9]), and the co-occurrence of microorganisms within the mosquito [10][11][12] or within the blood of the vertebrate host [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20].…”

Discovery of prevalent naturalWolbachiainAedes aegyptiin Metropolitan Manila, Philippines using locally designed primers: bacterial density is influenced by strain and host sex

“…[11,12], and Aedes albopictus [13,14]. Different Wolbachia strains, i.e., w Melpop, w Mel, and w AlbB, from these natural hosts can exert life-shortening effects [6,10] or confer nutritional benefits [7], efficient maternal transmission [8,15], and antiviral protection [9,16,17]. CI that enables the rapid spread of Wolbachia into insect populations coupled with the antiviral effects of Wolbachia against arthropod-borne viruses forms the basis for the mass release of Wolbachia -transinfected Ae.…”