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Identification of the source of blood meals in mosquitoes collected from north-eastern Australia

BACKGROUND: More than 70 arboviruses have been identified in Australia and the transmission cycles of most are poorly understood. While there is an extensive list of arthropods from which these viruses have been recovered, far less is known about the non-human hosts that may be involved in the trans...

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Autores principales: Gyawali, Narayan, Taylor-Robinson, Andrew W., Bradbury, Richard S., Huggins, David W., Hugo, Leon E., Lowry, Kym, Aaskov, John G.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6500030/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31053094
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-019-3455-2
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author Gyawali, Narayan
Taylor-Robinson, Andrew W.
Bradbury, Richard S.
Huggins, David W.
Hugo, Leon E.
Lowry, Kym
Aaskov, John G.
author_facet Gyawali, Narayan
Taylor-Robinson, Andrew W.
Bradbury, Richard S.
Huggins, David W.
Hugo, Leon E.
Lowry, Kym
Aaskov, John G.
author_sort Gyawali, Narayan
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: More than 70 arboviruses have been identified in Australia and the transmission cycles of most are poorly understood. While there is an extensive list of arthropods from which these viruses have been recovered, far less is known about the non-human hosts that may be involved in the transmission cycles of these viruses and the relative roles of different mosquito species in cycles of transmission involving different hosts. Some of the highest rates of human infection with zoonotic arboviruses, such as Ross River (RRV) and Barmah Forest (BFV) viruses, occur in coastal regions of north-eastern Australia. METHODS: Engorged mosquitoes collected as a part of routine surveillance using CO(2)-baited light traps in the Rockhampton Region and the adjoining Shire of Livingstone in central Queensland, north-eastern Australia, were analysed for the source of their blood meal. A 457 or 623 nucleotide region of the cytochrome b gene in the blood was amplified by PCR and the amplicons sequenced. The origin of the blood was identified by comparing the sequences obtained with those in GenBank®. RESULTS: The most common hosts for the mosquitoes sampled were domestic cattle (26/54) and wild birds (14/54). Humans (2/54) were an infrequent host for this range of mosquitoes that are known to transmit arboviruses causing human disease, and in an area where infections with human pathogens like RRV and BFV are commonly recorded. The blood meals identified in the most abundant vector analysed, Culex annulirostris, were from 10 different vertebrate hosts. The notable detection of chimpanzee blood in two mosquitoes, presumably obtained from a nearby zoo, extends the known range of hosts for this species. Culex quinquefasciatus and Cx. sitiens fed almost exclusively on a variety of bird species. CONCLUSIONS: While human-mosquito-human transmission of arboviruses like RRV can occur, this study highlights the potential importance of zoonotic cycles of transmission, including avian species, of arboviruses that are indigenous to Australia. Further studies on larger samples of blood-engorged mosquitoes are required to validate the trends observed herein. Moreover, serological and virological evidence that the hosts on which the mosquitoes are feeding are being infected with arboviruses of interest are required.
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spelling pubmed-65000302019-05-09 Identification of the source of blood meals in mosquitoes collected from north-eastern Australia Gyawali, Narayan Taylor-Robinson, Andrew W. Bradbury, Richard S. Huggins, David W. Hugo, Leon E. Lowry, Kym Aaskov, John G. Parasit Vectors Research BACKGROUND: More than 70 arboviruses have been identified in Australia and the transmission cycles of most are poorly understood. While there is an extensive list of arthropods from which these viruses have been recovered, far less is known about the non-human hosts that may be involved in the transmission cycles of these viruses and the relative roles of different mosquito species in cycles of transmission involving different hosts. Some of the highest rates of human infection with zoonotic arboviruses, such as Ross River (RRV) and Barmah Forest (BFV) viruses, occur in coastal regions of north-eastern Australia. METHODS: Engorged mosquitoes collected as a part of routine surveillance using CO(2)-baited light traps in the Rockhampton Region and the adjoining Shire of Livingstone in central Queensland, north-eastern Australia, were analysed for the source of their blood meal. A 457 or 623 nucleotide region of the cytochrome b gene in the blood was amplified by PCR and the amplicons sequenced. The origin of the blood was identified by comparing the sequences obtained with those in GenBank®. RESULTS: The most common hosts for the mosquitoes sampled were domestic cattle (26/54) and wild birds (14/54). Humans (2/54) were an infrequent host for this range of mosquitoes that are known to transmit arboviruses causing human disease, and in an area where infections with human pathogens like RRV and BFV are commonly recorded. The blood meals identified in the most abundant vector analysed, Culex annulirostris, were from 10 different vertebrate hosts. The notable detection of chimpanzee blood in two mosquitoes, presumably obtained from a nearby zoo, extends the known range of hosts for this species. Culex quinquefasciatus and Cx. sitiens fed almost exclusively on a variety of bird species. CONCLUSIONS: While human-mosquito-human transmission of arboviruses like RRV can occur, this study highlights the potential importance of zoonotic cycles of transmission, including avian species, of arboviruses that are indigenous to Australia. Further studies on larger samples of blood-engorged mosquitoes are required to validate the trends observed herein. Moreover, serological and virological evidence that the hosts on which the mosquitoes are feeding are being infected with arboviruses of interest are required. BioMed Central 2019-05-03 /pmc/articles/PMC6500030/ /pubmed/31053094 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-019-3455-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Gyawali, Narayan
Taylor-Robinson, Andrew W.
Bradbury, Richard S.
Huggins, David W.
Hugo, Leon E.
Lowry, Kym
Aaskov, John G.
Identification of the source of blood meals in mosquitoes collected from north-eastern Australia
title Identification of the source of blood meals in mosquitoes collected from north-eastern Australia
title_full Identification of the source of blood meals in mosquitoes collected from north-eastern Australia
title_fullStr Identification of the source of blood meals in mosquitoes collected from north-eastern Australia
title_full_unstemmed Identification of the source of blood meals in mosquitoes collected from north-eastern Australia
title_short Identification of the source of blood meals in mosquitoes collected from north-eastern Australia
title_sort identification of the source of blood meals in mosquitoes collected from north-eastern australia
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6500030/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31053094
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-019-3455-2
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