Wolbachia-Associated Bacterial Protection in the Mosquito Aedes aegypti

Wolbachia is a commonly occurring bacterium or symbiont that lives inside the cells of insects. Recently, Wolbachia was artificially introduced into the mosquito vector dengue virus that was naturally Wolbachia-free. Wolbachia limits the growth of a range of pathogens transmitted to humans, includi...

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Main Authors:	Ye, Yixin H., Woolfit, Megan, Rancès, Edwige, O'Neill, Scott L., McGraw, Elizabeth A.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2013
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3738474/

id	pubmed-3738474
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-37384742013-08-15 Wolbachia-Associated Bacterial Protection in the Mosquito Aedes aegypti Ye, Yixin H. Woolfit, Megan Rancès, Edwige O'Neill, Scott L. McGraw, Elizabeth A. Research Article Wolbachia is a commonly occurring bacterium or symbiont that lives inside the cells of insects. Recently, Wolbachia was artificially introduced into the mosquito vector dengue virus that was naturally Wolbachia-free. Wolbachia limits the growth of a range of pathogens transmitted to humans, including viruses, bacteria and parasites inside the mosquito. This “pathogen protection” forms the basis of field trials to determine if releasing Wolbachia into wild mosquito populations could reduce dengue virus incidence in humans. The basis of pathogen protection is not fully understood. Previous work suggests that the symbiont may activate the basal immune response, preparing the insect to defend itself against subsequent pathogen infection. Here we infect mosquitoes harbouring Wolbachia with a range of bacterial pathogens as a means to understand the nature of protection. We show that different Wolbachia strains vary in their ability to limit pathogen growth and that this correlates with the degree to which the Wolbachia activates the host immune response. These findings may assist with Wolbachia strain selection for future open field release and raise the question whether Wolbachia might provide a fitness advantage to mosquitoes in the wild by limiting their death due to bacterial infection. Public Library of Science 2013-08-08 /pmc/articles/PMC3738474/ /pubmed/23951381 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0002362 Text en © 2013 Ye et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Ye, Yixin H. Woolfit, Megan Rancès, Edwige O'Neill, Scott L. McGraw, Elizabeth A.
spellingShingle	Ye, Yixin H. Woolfit, Megan Rancès, Edwige O'Neill, Scott L. McGraw, Elizabeth A. Wolbachia-Associated Bacterial Protection in the Mosquito Aedes aegypti
author_facet	Ye, Yixin H. Woolfit, Megan Rancès, Edwige O'Neill, Scott L. McGraw, Elizabeth A.
author_sort	Ye, Yixin H.
title	Wolbachia-Associated Bacterial Protection in the Mosquito Aedes aegypti
title_short	Wolbachia-Associated Bacterial Protection in the Mosquito Aedes aegypti
title_full	Wolbachia-Associated Bacterial Protection in the Mosquito Aedes aegypti
title_fullStr	Wolbachia-Associated Bacterial Protection in the Mosquito Aedes aegypti
title_full_unstemmed	Wolbachia-Associated Bacterial Protection in the Mosquito Aedes aegypti
title_sort	wolbachia-associated bacterial protection in the mosquito aedes aegypti
description	Wolbachia is a commonly occurring bacterium or symbiont that lives inside the cells of insects. Recently, Wolbachia was artificially introduced into the mosquito vector dengue virus that was naturally Wolbachia-free. Wolbachia limits the growth of a range of pathogens transmitted to humans, including viruses, bacteria and parasites inside the mosquito. This “pathogen protection” forms the basis of field trials to determine if releasing Wolbachia into wild mosquito populations could reduce dengue virus incidence in humans. The basis of pathogen protection is not fully understood. Previous work suggests that the symbiont may activate the basal immune response, preparing the insect to defend itself against subsequent pathogen infection. Here we infect mosquitoes harbouring Wolbachia with a range of bacterial pathogens as a means to understand the nature of protection. We show that different Wolbachia strains vary in their ability to limit pathogen growth and that this correlates with the degree to which the Wolbachia activates the host immune response. These findings may assist with Wolbachia strain selection for future open field release and raise the question whether Wolbachia might provide a fitness advantage to mosquitoes in the wild by limiting their death due to bacterial infection.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2013
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3738474/
_version_	1612001859264839680

Wolbachia-Associated Bacterial Protection in the Mosquito Aedes aegypti

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