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Q&A ViewAttendees 1

Medical, Urban, and Veterinary Entomology

10-Minute Paper

MUVE: Mosquito Physiology and Control

Investigating the heritability of intrapopulation variation for dengue virus competence in Aedes aegypti

Wednesday, November 3, 2021
2:54 PM – 3:06 PM MT
Location: Colorado Convention Center, Meeting Room 205-207
In-Person

    Presenting Author(s)

  • Derrick Mathias

    Assistant Professor
    University of Florida
    Vero Beach, Florida

    • Co-Author(s)

  • XW

    Xiaodi Wang

    PhD Student
    University of Florida
    Vero Beach, Florida

  • Jovana Bozic

    Postdoctoral Fellow
    Pennsylvania State University
    State College, Pennsylvania

  • TS

    Tanise Stenn

    University of Florida
    Vero Beach, Florida

Dengue virus (DENV) re-emerged in Florida in 2009, and since then, local transmission has been documented yearly with the exception of 2017. The spread of re-emergent arboviruses is governed by numerous factors including vector competence (VC), an inherent property of mosquito populations that encompasses susceptibility to virus infection and capability of onward transmission by bite. Numerous studies show that VC for DENV varies both within and among mosquito species and that for competent species, geographic origin of the vector population influences the degree of competency. Worldwide, the most important vector of DENV is the mosquito Aedes aegypti, and dengue risk in the U.S. is greatest in Florida and Texas where this species is firmly entrenched. However, competence for DENV in Ae. aegypti varies among individual mosquitoes, likely caused in part by genetic variability that renders some mosquitoes incapable of producing infectious saliva. To investigate this phenomenon, we initiated isofemale lines derived from field-collected mosquitoes and exposed females (5-7 days post-emergence) to blood meals with DENV-2 in successive generations. At day 14 post-exposure, we used plaque assays to determine tissue-specific viral titers, as well as rates of infection and dissemination. Using an approach from quantitative genetics, we then estimated the proportion of variation in each phenotype that has an additive genetic basis (i.e., the narrow-sense heritability). Our results indicate that both genetic and environmental factors contribute to dengue virus competency, while demonstrating a surprising amount of variability among lines derived from an area less than one square kilometer in size.