Thank you for visiting nature. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer. In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. Medically important arboviruses such as dengue, Zika, and chikungunya viruses are primarily transmitted by the globally distributed mosquito Aedes aegypti.
Increasing evidence suggests that transmission can be influenced by mosquito viromes. The two mosquito populations showed a high degree of similarity in their viromes. Three characterized viruses dominated, Phasi Charoen-like virus, Humaita-Tubiacanga virus and Cell fusing agent virus, and comparisons with other available RNA-Seq datasets suggested infection levels with these viruses may vary in laboratory-reared mosquitoes. As expected, mosquitoes from Bangkok showed higher mitochondrial diversity and carried alleles associated with knock-down resistance to pyrethroids.
These results highlight the wide spectrum of data that can be obtained from such RNA-Seq analyses, and suggests differing viromes may need to be considered in arbovirus vector competence studies. In recent years metagenomics the study of genetic content of entire communities recovered directly from environmental samples has provided new insights into the substantial complexity and diversity of RNA viruses of invertebrates 1.
Of particular interest to arbovirology is the identification of an increasing number of insect-specific viruses ISVs that infect mosquitoes, but that are unable to infect vertebrates 2 , 3. Several ISVs have been shown to suppress or enhance 4 replication of medically important arboviruses such as dengue, West Nile and chikungunya viruses, suggesting they play an important role in modulating vector competence 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9.
The mosquito Aedes aegypti is a primary vector for transmission of a number of arboviruses such as dengue, Zika, and chikungunya viruses that infect tens of millions of people in tropical and subtropical regions around the globe every year. Herein we use a metagenomic approach to describe the virome of two wild-caught, geographically distant Ae. Both mosquito populations are associated with dengue transmission. The Cairns mosquitoes were also collected near the sites of release of Wolbachia -infected Ae.
