Viruses (Aug 2022)

Arthropod-Borne Virus Surveillance as a Tool to Study the Australian Mosquito Virome

  • Agathe M. G. Colmant,
  • David Warrilow,
  • Sonja Hall-Mendelin,
  • Michael Onn,
  • Jody Hobson-Peters,
  • Bixing Huang,
  • Nina Kurucz,
  • Allan Warchot,
  • Bridgette R. Primmer,
  • Sally Isberg,
  • Helle Bielefeldt-Ohmann,
  • Roy A. Hall

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/v14091882
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 9
p. 1882

Abstract

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Mosquitoes (n = 4381 in 198 pools) were collected in March and April 2018 to survey the presence of West Nile virus Kunjin strain in mosquito populations around crocodile farms in the Darwin region of the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia. While no Kunjin virus was detected in these mosquitoes, we applied our viral replicative intermediates screening system termed monoclonal antibodies to viral RNA intermediates in cells or MAVRIC to this set of samples. This resulted in the detection of 28 pools with virus replicating in C6/36 mosquito cells and the identification of three insect viruses from three distinct virus classes. We demonstrate the persistence of the insect-specific flavivirus Palm Creek virus in Coquillettidia xanthogaster mosquitoes from Darwin over almost a decade, with limited genetic drift. We also detected a novel Hubei macula-like virus 3 strain in samples from two mosquito genera, suggesting the virus, for which the sequence was originally detected in spiders and soybean thrips, might be involved in a horizontal transmission cycle between arthropods and plants. Overall, these data demonstrate the strength of the optimized MAVRIC system and contribute to our general knowledge of the mosquito virome and insect viruses.

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