Use of MALDI-TOF MS for the Identification of Chad Mosquitoes and the Origin of Their Blood Meal

Abstract

Matrix-assisted desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) is a clinical microbiology tool for the systematic identification of microorganisms. It has recently been presented as an innovative tool for the rapid and accurate identification of mosquitoes and their blood meal. To evaluate the capacity of this tool to identify mosquitoes collected in a tropical environment and preserved with silica gel, we analyzed 188 mosquitoes of different species collected in Chad, which were preserved with silica gel for 2 months. The MALDI-TOF MS analysis correctly identified 96% of the mosquitoes and 37.5% of their blood meals. Using MALDI-TOF MS and molecular biology, eight mosquito species were identified, including Anopheles gambiae s.l., Anopheles rufipes, Culex quinquefasciatus, Culex neavei, Culex pipiens, Culex perexiguus, Culex rima, and Culex watti. Blood meal identification revealed that mosquitoes fed mainly on humans, birds, and cows. Matrix-assisted desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry appears to be a promising, fast, and reliable tool to identify mosquitoes and the origin of their blood meal for samples stored with silica gel.

Performance of MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry to Determine the Sex of Mosquitoes and Identify Specific Colonies from French Polynesia

“…Proof-ofconcept studies for the identification of arthropods by MALDI-TOF MS analysis set up a threshold LSV at 1.8 for accurate identification of the species. 20,41 Our results on Ae. aegypti specimens from French Polynesia suggest that despite the geographical variability observed between populations of a same mosquito species, a successful identification can be achieved based on reference spectra from another country.…”

“…The spectra of each mosquito specimen were queried against the existing homemade reference database using MALDI-Biotyper software v. 3.0 (Bruker Daltonics). 41 The arthropod homemade MS database was upgraded with reference spectra of two specimens of Ae. polynesiensis of both sexes, as spectra of this species were absent in our database; and two reference spectra of C. quinquefasciatus Paea after confirmation by molecular biology.…”

Modernizing the Toolkit for Arthropod Bloodmeal Identification

“…While this promising technique is reported to be less costly than nucleotide-based assays despite requiring expensive instrumentation, it also has the major limitation that no commonly accessible, searchable database of profiles currently exists. Most studies utilizing this technique create “home-made” libraries limited to arthropods engorged on specific hosts of interest [ 142 , 144 ], which limits the usefulness of MALDI-TOF MS application for the study of the feeding habits of field-collected arthropods [ 200 , 201 ]. However, this current limitation is not insurmountable.…”

“…Finally, while the costs of sample preparation and running the samples are very low, instrument costs remain high, making it a costly addition to a lab not actively using MALDI-TOF MS for other applications. Despite these challenges, this technology has been used to identify the bloodmeal sources of ticks [ 198 , 202 ], mosquitoes [ 142 , 143 , 144 , 199 , 200 , 201 ], and Culicoides midges [ 197 ].…”

Using MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry to identify ticks collected on domestic and wild animals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo

“…Recently, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) has emerged as an alternative tool for the accurate and rapid identification of many arthropod species (Yssouf et al 2016), including mosquitoes (Diarra et al 2019;Lawrence et al 2019;Tandina et al 2018;Vega-Rua et al 2018), ticks (Boucheikhchoukh et al 2018;Boyer et al 2019;Diarra et al 2017;Rothen et al 2016), fleas (Yssouf et al 2014;Zurita et al 2019), sand flies (Arfuso et al 2019;Dvorak et al 2014;Lafri et al 2016), triatomine bugs (Laroche et al 2018), and lice (Ouarti et al 2020). The effectiveness and precision of MALDI-TOF MS in identifying ticks using their legs has been reported in several studies (Boucheikhchoukh et al 2018;Boyer et al 2019;Diarra et al 2017;Kumsa et al 2016;Rothen et al 2016;Yssouf et al 2013).…”