First report of natural Wolbachia infection in wild Anopheles funestus population in Senegal

• Published in: Malaria Journal
• Main Authors: El Hadji Amadou Niang, Hubert Bassene, Patrick Makoundou, Florence Fenollar, Mylène Weill, Oleg Mediannikov
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: BMC 2018
• Subjects: Wolbachia; Plasmodium; An. funestus; wAnfu; Malaria; Biological control Senegal; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Infectious and parasitic diseases; RC109-216; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12936-018-2559-z; https://doaj.org/article/0021a2ac94414e988c66f32bbd49fe57

Abstract Background Until very recently, Anopheles were considered naturally unable to host Wolbachia, an intracellular bacterium regarded as a potential biological control tool. Their detection in field populations of Anopheles gambiae sensu lato, suggests that they may also be present in many more anopheline species than previously thought. Results Here, is reported the first discovery of natural Wolbachia infections in Anopheles funestus populations from Senegal, the second main malaria vector in Africa. Molecular phylogeny analysis based on the 16S rRNA gene revealed at least two Wolbachia genotypes which were named wAnfu-A and wAnfu-B, according to their close relatedness to the A and B supergroups. Furthermore, both wAnfu genotypes displayed high proximity with wAnga sequences previously described from the An. gambiae complex, with only few nucleotide differences. However, the low prevalence of infection, together with the difficulties encountered for detection, whatever method used, highlights the need to develop an effective and sensitive Wolbachia screening method dedicated to anopheline. Conclusions The discovery of natural Wolbachia infection in An. funestus, another major malaria vector, may overcome the main limitation of using a Wolbachia-based approach to control malaria through population suppression and/or replacement.