Viruses were identified from
male anthropophilic
mosquitoes from Mato Grosso (MT)
State , Midwest
Brazil from February 2017 to January 2018.
Mosquitoes tested included
Aedes (Stegomyia) aegypti (1139
males ; 84 pools),
Culex quinquefasciatus (9426
males ; 179 pools),
Culex sp. (3
males ; 3 pools) and Psorophora albigenu (1
male ; 1 pool) collected from four cities of MT. Pools were subjected to
viral RNA extraction followed by RT-PCRs specific for ten
flaviviruses , five
alphaviruses and Simbu
serogroup of
orthobunyaviruses . Positive pools were passaged three times in
VERO cells (
alphavirus and
orthobunyavirus ) or C6/36
cells (
flavivirus ), with isolates confirmed through RT-PCR and
nucleotide sequencing. We detected pools positive for Ilhéus (1 pool),
dengue serotype 4 (1), Mayaro (12),
equine encephalitis virus (1)
yellow fever (1), Oropouche (2), Zika (4) and chikungunya (12)
viruses .
High throughput sequencing of
arbovirus positive pools identified 35
insect -specific
viruses (ISVs) from the
families Circoviridae (2),
Parvoviridae (2),
Totiviridae (1),
Flaviviridae (1), Iflaviridae (2),
Mesoniviridae (4),
Nodaviridae (2),
Luteoviridae (1), Phasmaviridae (1) Phenuiviridae (2),
Rhabdoviridae (2),
Orthomyxoviridae (1), Xinmoviridae (1), and unclassified Bunyavirales (1), unclassified Picornavirales (3), unclassified Riboviria (4) and taxon Negevirus (5). From these, five novel
viruses were tentatively named Mojica
circovirus , Kuia iflavirus, Muxirum negevirus, Lambada picorna-like
virus and Tacuru picorna-like
virus . Our findings underscore the diversity and wide geographical distribution of ISVs and
arboviruses infecting
male culicids .