Received: FebruAccepted: Published: July 29, 2020Ĭopyright: © 2020 Fraser et al. Valenzuela, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, UNITED STATES Understanding these mechanisms will enable us to predict the risk of viral resistance arising against Wolbachia and facilitate preparation of second-generation field release lines.Ĭitation: Fraser JE, O’Donnell TB, Duyvestyn JM, O’Neill SL, Simmons CP, Flores HA (2020) Novel phenotype of Wolbachia strain wPip in Aedes aegypti challenges assumptions on mechanisms of Wolbachia-mediated dengue virus inhibition. This finding has allowed us to begin a rigorous program of comparative studies to determine which features of a Wolbachia strain determine whether it is antiviral. aegypti carrying wPip are still able to transmit dengue similar to mosquitoes that do not carry Wolbachia. Here we characterise a new Wolbachia strain, wPip, and find that Ae. Although this is proving to be a highly effective method, the details of how this biocontrol tool works are not well understood.
This has driven the rise of novel vector control programs, in particular those that use the bacterium, Wolbachia, which prevents transmission of dengue and other human pathogenic viruses when stably introduced into Ae. Vaccines have limited efficacy and there are no approved therapeutics. aegypti from transmitting viruses.ĭengue virus, transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, is one of the fastest-growing infectious diseases, causing an estimated 390 million human infections per year worldwide. These findings, and the experimental platform provided by this panel of genetically comparable mosquito lines, clear the way for future investigations to define how Wolbachia prevents Ae. We demonstrate that, contrary to previous suggestions, there is no association between a strain’s ability to inhibit dengue infection in the mosquito and either its typical density in the midgut or salivary glands, or the degree to which it elevates innate immune response pathways in the mosquito.
aegypti lines carrying virus-inhibitory ( wMel and wAlbB) and non-inhibitory ( wPip) strains in a common genetic background, to rigorously test a number of hypotheses about the mechanism of Wolbachia-mediated virus inhibition. We have leveraged this novel finding, and a panel of Ae. Here, we demonstrate that the Wolbachia strain wPip does not inhibit virus infection in Ae. Despite the success of this novel intervention, we still do not fully understand how Wolbachia protects mosquitoes from viral infection. Growing evidence indicates that when Wolbachia strains wMel or wAlbB are introduced into local mosquito populations, human dengue incidence is reduced. The bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia is a biocontrol tool that inhibits the ability of the Aedes aegypti mosquito to transmit positive-sense RNA viruses such as dengue and Zika.