The Mosquito Microbiome—Leveraging Basic Biology for Control

A special issue of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease (ISSN 2414-6366).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2023) | Viewed by 1138

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
1. Vector Control Reference Laboratory, Centre for Emerging, Zoonotic & Parasitic Diseases, National Institute for Communicable Diseases, Johannesburg 2001, South Africa
2. Wits Research Institute for Malaria, School of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2001, South Africa
Interests: microbiome; microbiota; virome; diversity; paratransgenesis; metagenomics; 16S; next-generation sequencing; vector competence

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The insect microbiome is gaining increasing interest from biologists due to the biological role of the microbiome.

The mosquito microbiome, particularly the gut microbiome, is an attractive vector control target because of the critical role of the gut microbiome in mediating vector competence. The gut microbiome has therefore been a target for investigating potential paratransgenesis interventions.

Paratransgenesis would be best served by using microorganisms that can be transferred both vertically and horizontally. Therefore, the characterization of the microbiome goes beyond that of the gut microbiome to include the microbiota from other tissues. This factor, coupled with the increasing affordability of next-generation sequencing, is resulting in the exponential increase in publications on the subject.

The proposed topic has a range of avenues. The field of Anopheles and Aedes microbiota can be discussed in terms of the prevention of disease transmission. However, there are also a range of basic biological effects of the manipulation of mosquito microbiota that need to be investigated. As such, the phrasing of the title encourages the submission of the broadest possible collection of articles.

Dr. Shüné V. Oliver
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • microbiome
  • microbiota
  • virome
  • diversity
  • paratransgenesis
  • metagenomics
  • 16S
  • next-generation sequencing
  • vector competence

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

13 pages, 1880 KiB  
Article
Characterization of the Tissue and Strain-Specific Microbiota of Anopheles funestus Giles (Diptera: Culicidae)
by Chia-Yu Chen, Wai-Yin Chan, Arshad Ismail and Shüné V. Oliver
Trop. Med. Infect. Dis. 2024, 9(4), 84; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/tropicalmed9040084 - 13 Apr 2024
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Abstract
The mosquito microbiota is a critical determinant of mosquito life history. It is therefore a target for novel vector control strategies like paratransgenesis. However, the microbiota in Anopheles funestus, a major African malaria vector, is poorly characterized. Thus, the study aimed to [...] Read more.
The mosquito microbiota is a critical determinant of mosquito life history. It is therefore a target for novel vector control strategies like paratransgenesis. However, the microbiota in Anopheles funestus, a major African malaria vector, is poorly characterized. Thus, the study aimed to investigate the overall bacterial landscape in the salivary glands, ovaries and midguts of three laboratory strains of An. funestus differing in insecticide-resistant phenotype by sequencing the V3–V4 hypervariable region of bacterial 16S rRNA genes. When examining alpha diversity, the salivary glands harbored significantly more bacteria in terms of species richness and evenness compared to ovaries and midguts. On the strain level, the insecticide-susceptible FANG strain had significantly lower bacterial diversity than the insecticide-resistant FUMOZ and FUMOZ-R strains. When looking at beta diversity, the compositions of microbiota between the three tissues as well as between the strains were statistically different. While there were common bacteria across all three tissues and strains of interest, each tissue and strain did exhibit differentially abundant bacterial genera. However, overall, the top five most abundant genera across all tissues and strains were Elizabethkingia, Acinetobacter, Aeromonas, Cedecea and Yersinia. The presence of shared microbiota suggests a core microbiota that could be exploited for paratransgenesis efforts. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Mosquito Microbiome—Leveraging Basic Biology for Control)
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