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Starvation at the larval stage increases the vector competence of Aedes aegypti females for Zika virus

Aedes aegypti is the primary vector of Zika virus (ZIKV), a flavivirus which typically presents itself as febrile-like symptoms in humans but can also cause neurological and pregnancy complications. The transmission cycle of mosquito-borne arboviruses such as ZIKV requires that various key tissues i...

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Autores principales: Herd, Christie S., Grant, DeAna G., Lin, Jingyi, Franz, Alexander W. E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8659361/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34843483
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0010003
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author Herd, Christie S.
Grant, DeAna G.
Lin, Jingyi
Franz, Alexander W. E.
author_facet Herd, Christie S.
Grant, DeAna G.
Lin, Jingyi
Franz, Alexander W. E.
author_sort Herd, Christie S.
collection PubMed
description Aedes aegypti is the primary vector of Zika virus (ZIKV), a flavivirus which typically presents itself as febrile-like symptoms in humans but can also cause neurological and pregnancy complications. The transmission cycle of mosquito-borne arboviruses such as ZIKV requires that various key tissues in the female mosquito get productively infected with the virus before the mosquito can transmit the virus to another vertebrate host. Following ingestion of a viremic blood-meal from a vertebrate, ZIKV initially infects the midgut epithelium before exiting the midgut after blood-meal digestion to disseminate to secondary tissues including the salivary glands. Here we investigated whether smaller Ae. aegypti females resulting from food deprivation as larvae exhibited an altered vector competence for blood-meal acquired ZIKV relative to larger mosquitoes. Midguts from small ‘Starve’ and large ‘Control’ Ae. aegypti were dissected to visualize by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) the midgut basal lamina (BL) as physical evidence for the midgut escape barrier showing Starve mosquitoes with a significantly thinner midgut BL than Control mosquitoes at two timepoints. ZIKV replication was inhibited in Starve mosquitoes following intrathoracic injection of virus, however, Starve mosquitoes exhibited a significantly higher midgut escape and population dissemination rate at 9 days post-infection (dpi) via blood-meal, with more virus present in saliva and head tissue than Control by 10 dpi and 14 dpi, respectively. These results indicate that Ae. aegypti developing under stressful conditions potentially exhibit higher midgut infection and dissemination rates for ZIKV as adults, Thus, variation in food intake as larvae is potentially a source for variable vector competence levels of the emerged adults for the virus.
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spelling pubmed-86593612021-12-10 Starvation at the larval stage increases the vector competence of Aedes aegypti females for Zika virus Herd, Christie S. Grant, DeAna G. Lin, Jingyi Franz, Alexander W. E. PLoS Negl Trop Dis Research Article Aedes aegypti is the primary vector of Zika virus (ZIKV), a flavivirus which typically presents itself as febrile-like symptoms in humans but can also cause neurological and pregnancy complications. The transmission cycle of mosquito-borne arboviruses such as ZIKV requires that various key tissues in the female mosquito get productively infected with the virus before the mosquito can transmit the virus to another vertebrate host. Following ingestion of a viremic blood-meal from a vertebrate, ZIKV initially infects the midgut epithelium before exiting the midgut after blood-meal digestion to disseminate to secondary tissues including the salivary glands. Here we investigated whether smaller Ae. aegypti females resulting from food deprivation as larvae exhibited an altered vector competence for blood-meal acquired ZIKV relative to larger mosquitoes. Midguts from small ‘Starve’ and large ‘Control’ Ae. aegypti were dissected to visualize by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) the midgut basal lamina (BL) as physical evidence for the midgut escape barrier showing Starve mosquitoes with a significantly thinner midgut BL than Control mosquitoes at two timepoints. ZIKV replication was inhibited in Starve mosquitoes following intrathoracic injection of virus, however, Starve mosquitoes exhibited a significantly higher midgut escape and population dissemination rate at 9 days post-infection (dpi) via blood-meal, with more virus present in saliva and head tissue than Control by 10 dpi and 14 dpi, respectively. These results indicate that Ae. aegypti developing under stressful conditions potentially exhibit higher midgut infection and dissemination rates for ZIKV as adults, Thus, variation in food intake as larvae is potentially a source for variable vector competence levels of the emerged adults for the virus. Public Library of Science 2021-11-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8659361/ /pubmed/34843483 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0010003 Text en © 2021 Herd et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Herd, Christie S.
Grant, DeAna G.
Lin, Jingyi
Franz, Alexander W. E.
Starvation at the larval stage increases the vector competence of Aedes aegypti females for Zika virus
title Starvation at the larval stage increases the vector competence of Aedes aegypti females for Zika virus
title_full Starvation at the larval stage increases the vector competence of Aedes aegypti females for Zika virus
title_fullStr Starvation at the larval stage increases the vector competence of Aedes aegypti females for Zika virus
title_full_unstemmed Starvation at the larval stage increases the vector competence of Aedes aegypti females for Zika virus
title_short Starvation at the larval stage increases the vector competence of Aedes aegypti females for Zika virus
title_sort starvation at the larval stage increases the vector competence of aedes aegypti females for zika virus
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8659361/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34843483
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0010003
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