Center for Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, School of Biological, Environmental, and Earth Sciences, The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, 39406, USA.
Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia, P.O. Drawer E, Aiken, SC, 29802, USA.
Parasit Vectors. 2020 Jul 13;13(1):349. doi: 10.1186/s13071-020-04218-8.
The ability of blood-feeding arthropods to successfully acquire and transmit pathogens of medical and veterinary importance has been shown to be interfered with, or enhanced by, the arthropod's native microbiome. Mosquitoes transmit viruses, protozoan and filarial nematodes, the majority of which contribute to the 17% of infectious disease cases worldwide. Dirofilaria immitis, a mosquito-transmitted filarial nematodes of dogs and cats, is vectored by several mosquito species including Aedes aegypti.
In this study, we investigated the impact of D. immitis colonization on the microbiome of laboratory reared female Ae. aegypti. Metagenomic analysis of the V3-V4 variable region of the microbial 16S RNA gene was used for identification of the microbial differences down to species level.
We generated a total of 1068 OTUs representing 16 phyla, 181 genera and 271 bacterial species. Overall, in order of abundance, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria and Firmicutes were the most represented phylum with D. immitis-infected mosquitoes having more of Proteobacteria (71%) than uninfected mosquitoes (56.9%). An interesting finding in this study is the detection of Klebsiella oxytoca in relatively similar abundance in infected and uninfected mosquitoes, suggesting a possible endosymbiotic relationship, and has been previously shown to indirectly compete for nutrients with fungi on domestic housefly eggs and larvae. While D. immitis colonization has no effect on the overall species richness, we identified significant differences in the composition of selected bacterial genera and phyla between the two groups. We also reported distinct compositional and phylogenetic differences in the individual bacterial species when commonly identified bacteria were compared.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to understand the impact of a filarial infection on the microbiome of its mosquito vector. Further studies are required to identify bacteria species that could play an important role in the mosquito biology. While the microbiome composition of Ae. aegypti mosquito have been previously reported, our study shows that in an effort to establish itself, a filarial nematode modifies and alters the overall microbial diversity within its mosquito host.
血液吸食节肢动物成功获取和传播医学和兽医重要病原体的能力已被证明受到节肢动物固有微生物组的干扰或增强。蚊子传播病毒、原生动物和丝虫，其中大多数导致了全球 17%的传染病病例。犬恶丝虫和猫恶丝虫，一种由蚊子传播的丝虫，由包括埃及伊蚊在内的几种蚊子传播。
在这项研究中，我们研究了犬恶丝虫定殖对实验室饲养的雌性埃及伊蚊微生物组的影响。使用微生物 16S RNA 基因 V3-V4 可变区的宏基因组分析来识别微生物物种水平的差异。
我们总共生成了 1068 个代表 16 个门、181 个属和 271 个细菌种的 OTU。总体而言，按丰度顺序排列，变形菌门、拟杆菌门、放线菌门和厚壁菌门是最丰富的门，感染犬恶丝虫的蚊子比未感染的蚊子（56.9%）含有更多的变形菌门（71%）。本研究的一个有趣发现是，在感染和未感染的蚊子中，检测到丰度相似的产酸克雷伯氏菌，这表明可能存在共生关系，并且以前已经表明它会与真菌在家庭苍蝇卵和幼虫上间接竞争营养。虽然犬恶丝虫定殖对总体物种丰富度没有影响，但我们发现两组之间选定细菌属和门的组成有显著差异。当比较常见的细菌物种时，我们还报告了个体细菌物种的明显组成和系统发育差异。
据我们所知，这是首次了解丝虫感染对其蚊子载体微生物组的影响的研究。需要进一步的研究来识别可能在蚊子生物学中发挥重要作用的细菌物种。虽然以前已经报道过埃及伊蚊的微生物组组成，但我们的研究表明，为了建立自己，丝虫线虫会改变和改变其蚊子宿主的整体微生物多样性。
