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21 September 2022 Detection of Wolbachia in Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) in the State of Maranhão, Brazil
Erick Barros Chaves, Agostinho Cardoso Nascimento-Pereira, Jorge Luiz Moraes Pinto, Bruno Leite Rodrigues, Marcelo Souza de Andrade, José Manuel Macário Rêbelo
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Abstract

Recently, the endobacteria Wolbachia has emerged as a biological tool for the control of arboviruses. Thus, we investigated the rate of natural infection by Wolbachia in Culicidae species from Maranhão, Brazil. For this, we amplified the Wolbachia surface protein gene (wsp) from mosquitoes collected in six localities of Maranhão, and positive samples were subjected to new analysis using group-specific primers. In total, 448 specimens comprising 6 genera and 18 species of mosquitoes were analyzed. Wolbachia DNA was PCR-detected in 7 species, three of which are new records: Aedes scapularis (Rondani, 1848), Coquillettidia juxtamansonia (Chagas, 1907) and Cq. venezuelensis (Theobald, 1912), in addition to Ae. albopictus (Skuse, 1894) and Culex quinquefasciatus Say, 1823, which are commonly described as permissive to maintain this bacterium in natural environments, and two species of the subgenera Anopheles (Nyssorhynchus) Blanchard, 1902 and Culex (Melanoconion) Theobald, 1903 which could not be identified at species level. The infection rate of all species ranged from 0 to 80%, and the average value was 16.5%. This study increases the knowledge about the prevalence of Wolbachia in the culicid fauna and may help in selecting strains for biological control purposes.

© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
Erick Barros Chaves, Agostinho Cardoso Nascimento-Pereira, Jorge Luiz Moraes Pinto, Bruno Leite Rodrigues, Marcelo Souza de Andrade, and José Manuel Macário Rêbelo "Detection of Wolbachia in Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) in the State of Maranhão, Brazil," Journal of Medical Entomology 59(5), 1831-1836, (21 September 2022). https://doi.org/10.1093/jme/tjac092
Received: 10 April 2022; Accepted: 8 June 2022; Published: 21 September 2022
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KEYWORDS
biological vector
endosymbiont; natural infection
parasite
Wolbachia
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