Gloria-Soria Andrea, Chiodo Tommaso G, Powell Jeffrey R
Department of Environmental Sciences, The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven, CT.
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department, Yale University, New Haven, CT.
J Med Entomol. 2018 Aug 29;55(5):1354-1356. doi: 10.1093/jme/tjy084.
Wolbachia is a genus of endosymbiotic bacteria that infects 66% of all insect species. Its major impact on insects is in reproduction: sterility, production of one sex, and/or parthenogenesis. Another effect was discovered when the disease-transmitting mosquito, Aedes aegypti Linnaeus (Diptera: Culicidae), was infected with Wolbachia isolated from Drosophila: infected female mosquitoes became less capable of transmitting diseases such as dengue fever and chikungunya. This has led to releases of Ae. aegypti carrying Wolbachia in an attempt to control disease. An open question is whether there are natural Wolbachia infections of this mosquito. We assayed DNA from 2,663 Ae. aegypti from 27 countries on six continents, 230 from laboratory strains, and 72 Aedes mascarensis MacGregor (Diptera: Culicidae) for presence of Wolbachia DNA. Within the limits of our polymerase chain reaction-based assay, we found no evidence of Wolbachia, suggesting that natural infections of this endosymbiont are unlikely to occur throughout the worldwide distribution of Ae. aegypti.
沃尔巴克氏体是一种内共生细菌属，感染了所有昆虫物种的66%。它对昆虫的主要影响在于繁殖方面：导致不育、单性生殖和/或孤雌生殖。当传播疾病的埃及伊蚊（双翅目：蚊科）感染从果蝇中分离出的沃尔巴克氏体时，发现了另一种效应：受感染的雌蚊传播登革热和基孔肯雅热等疾病的能力降低。这导致了携带沃尔巴克氏体的埃及伊蚊被释放，试图控制疾病传播。一个悬而未决的问题是，这种蚊子是否存在自然感染沃尔巴克氏体的情况。我们对来自六大洲27个国家的2663只埃及伊蚊、230只实验室菌株的埃及伊蚊以及72只马斯卡林伊蚊（双翅目：蚊科）进行了检测，以确定是否存在沃尔巴克氏体DNA。在我们基于聚合酶链反应的检测范围内，我们没有发现沃尔巴克氏体存在的证据，这表明在埃及伊蚊的全球分布范围内，这种内共生菌的自然感染不太可能发生。
