School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Vic., Australia.
Infection & Immunity Program, Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Monash University, Clayton, Vic., Australia.
Mol Ecol. 2018 Jan;27(1):297-309. doi: 10.1111/mec.14436. Epub 2017 Dec 9.
Insect-symbiont interactions are known to play key roles in host functions and fitness. The common insect endosymbiont Wolbachia can reduce the ability of several human pathogens, including arboviruses and the malaria parasite, to replicate in insect hosts. Wolbachia does not naturally infect Aedes aegypti, the primary vector of dengue virus, but transinfected Ae. aegypti have antidengue virus properties and are currently being trialled as a dengue biocontrol strategy. Here, we assess the impact of Wolbachia infection of Ae. aegypti on the microbiome of wild mosquito populations (adults and larvae) collected from release sites in Cairns, Australia, by profiling the 16S rRNA gene using next-generation sequencing. Our data indicate that Wolbachia reduces the relative abundance of a large proportion of bacterial taxa in Ae. aegypti adults, that is in accordance with the known pathogen-blocking effects of Wolbachia on a variety of bacteria and viruses. In adults, several of the most abundant bacterial genera were found to undergo significant shifts in relative abundance. However, the genera showing the greatest changes in relative abundance in Wolbachia-infected adults represented a low proportion of the total microbiome. In addition, there was little effect of Wolbachia infection on the relative abundance of bacterial taxa in larvae, or on species diversity (accounting for species richness and evenness together) detected in adults or larvae. These results offer insight into the effects of Wolbachia on the Ae. aegypti microbiome in a native setting, an important consideration for field releases of Wolbachia into the population.
昆虫共生体相互作用已知在宿主功能和适应性方面发挥着关键作用。常见的昆虫共生菌沃尔巴克氏体能够降低几种人类病原体（包括虫媒病毒和疟原虫）在昆虫宿主中复制的能力。沃尔巴克氏体不会自然感染登革热病毒的主要传播媒介埃及伊蚊，但转染的埃及伊蚊具有抗登革热病毒的特性，目前正在作为登革热生物控制策略进行试验。在这里，我们通过使用下一代测序对 16S rRNA 基因进行分析，评估了沃尔巴克氏体感染埃及伊蚊对从澳大利亚凯恩斯释放地点采集的野生蚊子种群（成虫和幼虫）微生物组的影响。我们的数据表明，沃尔巴克氏体降低了埃及伊蚊成虫中很大一部分细菌分类群的相对丰度，这与沃尔巴克氏体对多种细菌和病毒的已知病原体阻断作用一致。在成虫中，发现几个最丰富的细菌属的相对丰度发生了显著变化。然而，在感染沃尔巴克氏体的成虫中相对丰度变化最大的属在总微生物组中所占比例很小。此外，沃尔巴克氏体感染对幼虫中细菌分类群的相对丰度或成虫和幼虫中检测到的物种多样性（共同考虑物种丰富度和均匀度）几乎没有影响。这些结果提供了沃尔巴克氏体对原生环境中埃及伊蚊微生物组影响的深入了解，这是将沃尔巴克氏体释放到种群中的一个重要考虑因素。
