Efficacy of Wolbachia-Infected Mosquito Deployments for the Control of Dengue.

BACKGROUND: Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with the wMel strain of Wolbachia pipientis are less susceptible than wild-type A. aegypti to dengue virus infection. METHODS: We conducted a cluster-randomized trial involving releases of wMel-infected A. aegypti mosquitoes for the control of dengue in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. We randomly assigned 12 geographic clusters to receive deployments of wMel-infected A. aegypti (intervention clusters) and 12 clusters to receive no deployments (control clusters). All clusters practiced local mosquito-control measures as usual. A test-negative design was used to assess the efficacy of the intervention. Patients with acute undifferentiated fever who presented to local primary care clinics and were 3 to 45 years of age were recruited. Laboratory testing was used to identify participants who had virologically confirmed dengue (VCD) and those who were test-negative controls. The primary end point was symptomatic VCD of any severity caused by any dengue virus serotype. RESULTS: After successful introgression of wMel into the intervention clusters, 8144 participants were enrolled; 3721 lived in intervention clusters, and 4423 lived in control clusters. In the intention-to-treat analysis, VCD occurred in 67 of 2905 participants (2.3%) in the intervention clusters and in 318 of 3401 (9.4%) in the control clusters (aggregate odds ratio for VCD, 0.23; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.15 to 0.35; P = 0.004). The protective efficacy of the intervention was 77.1% (95% CI, 65.3 to 84.9) and was similar against the four dengue virus serotypes. The incidence of hospitalization for VCD was lower among participants who lived in intervention clusters (13 of 2905 participants [0.4%]) than among those who lived in control clusters (102 of 3401 [3.0%]) (protective efficacy, 86.2%; 95% CI, 66.2 to 94.3). CONCLUSIONS: Introgression of wMel into A. aegypti populations was effective in reducing the incidence of symptomatic dengue and resulted in fewer hospitalizations for dengue among the participants. (Funded by the Tahija Foundation and others; AWED ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT03055585; Indonesia Registry number, INA-A7OB6TW.).

A Wolbachia symbiont in Aedes aegypti limits infection with dengue, Chikungunya, and Plasmodium.

Wolbachia are maternally inherited intracellular bacterial symbionts that are estimated to infect more than 60% of all insect species. While Wolbachia is commonly found in many mosquitoes it is absent from the species that are considered to be of major importance for the transmission of human pathogens. The successful introduction of a life-shortening strain of Wolbachia into the dengue vector Aedes aegypti that halves adult lifespan has recently been reported. Here we show that this same Wolbachia infection also directly inhibits the ability of a range of pathogens to infect this mosquito species. The effect is Wolbachia strain specific and relates to Wolbachia priming of the mosquito innate immune system and potentially competition for limiting cellular resources required for pathogen replication. We suggest that this Wolbachia-mediated pathogen interference may work synergistically with the life-shortening strategy proposed previously to provide a powerful approach for the control of insect transmitted diseases.

Novel phenotype of Wolbachia strain wPip in Aedes aegypti challenges assumptions on mechanisms of Wolbachia-mediated dengue virus inhibition.

The bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia is a biocontrol tool that inhibits the ability of the Aedes aegypti mosquito to transmit positive-sense RNA viruses such as dengue and Zika. Growing evidence indicates that when Wolbachia strains wMel or wAlbB are introduced into local mosquito populations, human dengue incidence is reduced. Despite the success of this novel intervention, we still do not fully understand how Wolbachia protects mosquitoes from viral infection. Here, we demonstrate that the Wolbachia strain wPip does not inhibit virus infection in Ae. aegypti. We have leveraged this novel finding, and a panel of Ae. aegypti lines carrying virus-inhibitory (wMel and wAlbB) and non-inhibitory (wPip) strains in a common genetic background, to rigorously test a number of hypotheses about the mechanism of Wolbachia-mediated virus inhibition. We demonstrate that, contrary to previous suggestions, there is no association between a strain's ability to inhibit dengue infection in the mosquito and either its typical density in the midgut or salivary glands, or the degree to which it elevates innate immune response pathways in the mosquito. These findings, and the experimental platform provided by this panel of genetically comparable mosquito lines, clear the way for future investigations to define how Wolbachia prevents Ae. aegypti from transmitting viruses.

Multiple Wolbachia strains provide comparative levels of protection against dengue virus infection in Aedes aegypti.

The insect bacterium Wolbachia pipientis is being introgressed into Aedes aegypti populations as an intervention against the transmission of medically important arboviruses. Here we compare Ae. aegypti mosquitoes infected with wMelCS or wAlbB to the widely used wMel Wolbachia strain on an Australian nuclear genetic background for their susceptibility to infection by dengue virus (DENV) genotypes spanning all four serotypes. All Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes were more resistant to intrathoracic DENV challenge than their wildtype counterparts. Blocking of DENV replication was greatest by wMelCS. Conversely, wAlbB-infected mosquitoes were more susceptible to whole body infection than wMel and wMelCS. We extended these findings via mosquito oral feeding experiments, using viremic blood from 36 acute, hospitalised dengue cases in Vietnam, additionally including wMel and wildtype mosquitoes on a Vietnamese nuclear genetic background. As above, wAlbB was less effective at blocking DENV replication in the abdomen compared to wMel and wMelCS. The transmission potential of all Wolbachia-infected mosquito lines (measured by the presence/absence of infectious DENV in mosquito saliva) after 14 days, was significantly reduced compared to their wildtype counterparts, and lowest for wMelCS and wAlbB. These data support the use of wAlbB and wMelCS strains for introgression field trials and the biocontrol of DENV transmission. Furthermore, despite observing significant differences in transmission potential between wildtype mosquitoes from Australia and Vietnam, no difference was observed between wMel-infected mosquitoes from each background suggesting that Wolbachia may override any underlying variation in DENV transmission potential.

Field- and clinically derived estimates of Wolbachia-mediated blocking of dengue virus transmission potential in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.

The wMel strain of Wolbachia can reduce the permissiveness of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to disseminated arboviral infections. Here, we report that wMel-infected Ae. aegypti (Ho Chi Minh City background), when directly blood-fed on 141 viremic dengue patients, have lower dengue virus (DENV) transmission potential and have a longer extrinsic incubation period than their wild-type counterparts. The wMel-infected mosquitoes that are field-reared have even greater relative resistance to DENV infection when fed on patient-derived viremic blood meals. This is explained by an increased susceptibility of field-reared wild-type mosquitoes to infection than laboratory-reared counterparts. Collectively, these field- and clinically relevant findings support the continued careful field-testing of wMel introgression for the biocontrol of Ae. aegypti-born arboviruses.

Wolbachia-mediated virus blocking in mosquito cells is dependent on XRN1-mediated viral RNA degradation and influenced by viral replication rate.

Wolbachia is currently being developed as a novel tool to block the transmission of dengue viruses (DENV) by Aedes aegypti. A number of mechanisms have been proposed to explain the DENV-blocking phenotype in mosquitoes, including competition for fatty acids like cholesterol, manipulation of host miRNAs and upregulation of innate immune pathways in the mosquito. We examined the various stages in the DENV infection process to better understand the mechanism of Wolbachia-mediated virus blocking (WMVB). Our results suggest that infection with Wolbachia does not inhibit DENV binding or cell entry, but reduces virus replication. In contrast to a previous report, we also observed a similar reduction in replication of West Nile virus (WNV). This reduced replication is associated with rapid viral RNA degradation in the cytoplasm. We didn't find a role for host miRNAs in WMVB. Further analysis showed that the 3' end of the virus subgenomic RNA was protected and accumulated over time suggesting that the degradation is XRN1-mediated. We also found that sub genomic flavivirus RNA accumulation inactivated XRN1 in mosquito cells in the absence of Wolbachia and led to enhancement of RNA degradation in its presence. Depletion of XRN1 decreased WMVB which was associated with a significant increase in DENV RNA. We also observed that WMVB is influenced by virus MOI and rate of virus replication. A comparatively elevated blocking was observed for slowly replicating DENV, compared to WNV. Similar results were obtained while analysing different DENV serotypes.

Local introduction and heterogeneous spatial spread of dengue-suppressing Wolbachia through an urban population of Aedes aegypti.

Dengue-suppressing Wolbachia strains are promising tools for arbovirus control, particularly as they have the potential to self-spread following local introductions. To test this, we followed the frequency of the transinfected Wolbachia strain wMel through Ae. aegypti in Cairns, Australia, following releases at 3 nonisolated locations within the city in early 2013. Spatial spread was analysed graphically using interpolation and by fitting a statistical model describing the position and width of the wave. For the larger 2 of the 3 releases (covering 0.97 km2 and 0.52 km2), we observed slow but steady spatial spread, at about 100-200 m per year, roughly consistent with theoretical predictions. In contrast, the smallest release (0.11 km2) produced erratic temporal and spatial dynamics, with little evidence of spread after 2 years. This is consistent with the prediction concerning fitness-decreasing Wolbachia transinfections that a minimum release area is needed to achieve stable local establishment and spread in continuous habitats. Our graphical and likelihood analyses produced broadly consistent estimates of wave speed and wave width. Spread at all sites was spatially heterogeneous, suggesting that environmental heterogeneity will affect large-scale Wolbachia transformations of urban mosquito populations. The persistence and spread of Wolbachia in release areas meeting minimum area requirements indicates the promise of successful large-scale population transformation.

Novel Wolbachia-transinfected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes possess diverse fitness and vector competence phenotypes.

Wolbachia pipientis from Drosophila melanogaster (wMel) is an endosymbiotic bacterium that restricts transmission of human pathogenic flaviviruses and alphaviruses, including dengue, Zika, and chikungunya viruses, when introduced into the mosquito vector Aedes aegypti. To date, wMel-infected Ae. aegypti have been released in field trials in 5 countries to evaluate the effectiveness of this strategy for disease control. Despite the success in establishing wMel-infected mosquitoes in wild populations, and the well-characterized antiviral capabilities of wMel, transinfecting different or additional Wolbachia strains into Ae. aegypti may improve disease impact, and perhaps more importantly, could provide a strategy to account for the possible evolution of resistant arboviruses. Here, we report the successful transinfection of Ae. aegypti with the Wolbachia strains wMelCS (D. melanogaster), wRi (D. simulans) and wPip (Culex quinquefasciatus) and assess the effects on Ae. aegypti fitness, cytoplasmic incompatibility, tissue tropism and pathogen blocking in a laboratory setting. The results demonstrate that wMelCS provides a similar degree of protection against dengue virus as wMel following an infectious blood meal, and significantly reduces viral RNA levels beyond that of wMel following a direct challenge with infectious virus in mosquitoes, with no additional fitness cost to the host. The protection provided by wRi is markedly weaker than that of wMelCS, consistent with previous characterisations of these lines in Drosophila, while wPip was found to substantially reduce the fitness of Ae. aegypti. Thus, we determine wMelCS as a key candidate for further testing in field-relevant fitness tests and viremic blood feeding challenges in a clinical setting to determine if it may represent an alternative Wolbachia strain with more desirable attributes than wMel for future field testing.

Cluster-Randomized Test-Negative Design Trials: A Novel and Efficient Method to Assess the Efficacy of Community-Level Dengue Interventions.

Cluster-randomized controlled trials are the gold standard for assessing efficacy of community-level interventions, such as vector-control strategies against dengue. We describe a novel cluster-randomized trial methodology with a test-negative design (CR-TND), which offers advantages over traditional approaches. This method uses outcome-based sampling of patients presenting with a syndrome consistent with the disease of interest, who are subsequently classified as test-positive cases or test-negative controls on the basis of diagnostic testing. We used simulations of a cluster trial to demonstrate validity of efficacy estimates under the test-negative approach. We demonstrated that, provided study arms are balanced for both test-negative and test-positive illness at baseline and that other test-negative design assumptions are met, the efficacy estimates closely match true efficacy. Analytical considerations for an odds ratio-based effect estimate arising from clustered data and potential approaches to analysis are also discussed briefly. We concluded that application of the test-negative design to certain cluster-randomized trials could increase their efficiency and ease of implementation.

Intensity of Mutualism Breakdown Is Determined by Temperature Not Amplification of Wolbachia Genes.

Wolbachia are maternally transmitted intracellular bacterial symbionts that infect approximately 40% of all insect species. Though several strains of Wolbachia naturally infect Drosophila melanogaster and provide resistance against viral pathogens, or provision metabolites during periods of nutritional stress, one virulent strain, wMelPop, reduces fly lifespan by half, possibly as a consequence of over-replication. While the mechanisms that allow wMelPop to over-replicate are still of debate, a unique tandem repeat locus in the wMelPop genome that contains eight genes, referred to as the "Octomom" locus has been identified and is thought to play an important regulatory role. Estimates of Octomom locus copy number correlated increasing copy number to both Wolbachia bacterial density and increased pathology. Here we demonstrate that infected fly pathology is not dependent on an increased Octomom copy number, but does strongly correlate with increasing temperature. When measured across developmental time, we also show Octomom copy number to be highly variable across developmental time within a single generation. Using a second pathogenic strain of Wolbachia, we further demonstrate reduced insect lifespan can occur independently of a high Octomom locus copy number. Taken together, this data demonstrates that the mechanism/s of wMelPop virulence is more complex than has been previously described.

Establishment of a Wolbachia Superinfection in Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes as a Potential Approach for Future Resistance Management.

Wolbachia pipientis is an endosymbiotic bacterium estimated to chronically infect between 40-75% of all arthropod species. Aedes aegypti, the principle mosquito vector of dengue virus (DENV), is not a natural host of Wolbachia. The transinfection of Wolbachia strains such as wAlbB, wMel and wMelPop-CLA into Ae. aegypti has been shown to significantly reduce the vector competence of this mosquito for a range of human pathogens in the laboratory. This has led to wMel-transinfected Ae. aegypti currently being released in five countries to evaluate its effectiveness to control dengue disease in human populations. Here we describe the generation of a superinfected Ae. aegypti mosquito line simultaneously infected with two avirulent Wolbachia strains, wMel and wAlbB. The line carries a high overall Wolbachia density and tissue localisation of the individual strains is very similar to each respective single infected parental line. The superinfected line induces unidirectional cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) when crossed to each single infected parental line, suggesting that the superinfection would have the capacity to replace either of the single constituent infections already present in a mosquito population. No significant differences in fitness parameters were observed between the superinfected line and the parental lines under the experimental conditions tested. Finally, the superinfected line blocks DENV replication more efficiently than the single wMel strain when challenged with blood meals from viremic dengue patients. These results suggest that the deployment of superinfections could be used to replace single infections and may represent an effective strategy to help manage potential resistance by DENV to field deployments of single infected strains.

Wolbachia infection alters the relative abundance of resident bacteria in adult Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, but not larvae.

Insect-symbiont interactions are known to play key roles in host functions and fitness. The common insect endosymbiont Wolbachia can reduce the ability of several human pathogens, including arboviruses and the malaria parasite, to replicate in insect hosts. Wolbachia does not naturally infect Aedes aegypti, the primary vector of dengue virus, but transinfected Ae. aegypti have antidengue virus properties and are currently being trialled as a dengue biocontrol strategy. Here, we assess the impact of Wolbachia infection of Ae. aegypti on the microbiome of wild mosquito populations (adults and larvae) collected from release sites in Cairns, Australia, by profiling the 16S rRNA gene using next-generation sequencing. Our data indicate that Wolbachia reduces the relative abundance of a large proportion of bacterial taxa in Ae. aegypti adults, that is in accordance with the known pathogen-blocking effects of Wolbachia on a variety of bacteria and viruses. In adults, several of the most abundant bacterial genera were found to undergo significant shifts in relative abundance. However, the genera showing the greatest changes in relative abundance in Wolbachia-infected adults represented a low proportion of the total microbiome. In addition, there was little effect of Wolbachia infection on the relative abundance of bacterial taxa in larvae, or on species diversity (accounting for species richness and evenness together) detected in adults or larvae. These results offer insight into the effects of Wolbachia on the Ae. aegypti microbiome in a native setting, an important consideration for field releases of Wolbachia into the population.

The Use of Wolbachia by the World Mosquito Program to Interrupt Transmission of Aedes aegypti Transmitted Viruses.

The biological control of mosquito transmission by the use of the naturally occurring insect-specific bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia has been successfully tested in small field trials. The approach has been translated successfully to larger field sites in Townsville, Australia and expanded to more than 10 countries through the Eliminate Dengue Program. The broader application of the program beyond limiting the transmission of dengue and including other Aedes aegypti borne mosquitoes has seen the program growing into a global not-for-profit initiative to be known as the World Mosquito Program.

Screening of Wolbachia Endosymbiont Infection in Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes Using Attenuated Total Reflection Mid-Infrared Spectroscopy.

Dengue fever is the most common mosquito transmitted viral infection afflicting humans, estimated to generate around 390 million infections each year in over 100 countries. The introduction of the endosymbiotic bacterium Wolbachia into Aedes aegypti mosquitoes has the potential to greatly reduce the public health burden of the disease. This approach requires extensive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing of the Wolbachia-infection status of mosquitoes in areas where Wolbachia-A. aegypti are released. Here, we report the first example of small organism mid-infrared spectroscopy where we have applied attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FT-IR) spectroscopy and multivariate modeling methods to determine sex, age, and the presence of Wolbachia (wMel strain) in laboratory mosquitoes and sex and age in field mosquitoes. The prediction errors using partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) discrimination models for laboratory studies on independent test sets ranged from 0 to 3% for age and sex grading and 3% to 5% for Wolbachia infection diagnosis using dry mosquito abdomens while field study results using an artificial neural network yielded a 10% error. The application of FT-IR analysis is inexpensive, easy to use, and portable and shows significant potential to replace the reliance on more expensive and laborious PCR assays.

Wolbachia small noncoding RNAs and their role in cross-kingdom communications.

In prokaryotes, small noncoding RNAs (snRNAs) of 50-500 nt are produced that are important in bacterial virulence and response to environmental stimuli. Here, we identified and characterized snRNAs from the endosymbiotic bacteria, Wolbachia, which are widespread in invertebrates and cause reproductive manipulations. Most importantly, some strains of Wolbachia inhibit replication of several vector-borne pathogens in insects. We demonstrate that two abundant snRNAs, WsnRNA-46 and WsnRNA-49, are expressed in Wolbachia from noncoding RNA transcripts that contain precursors with stem-loop structures. WsnRNAs were detected in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with the wMelPop-CLA strain of Wolbachia and in Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila simulans infected with wMelPop and wAu strains, respectively, indicating that the WsnRNAs are conserved across species and strains. In addition, we show that the WsnRNAs may potentially regulate host genes and Wolbachia genes. Our findings provide evidence for the production of functional snRNAs by Wolbachia that play roles in cross-kingdom communication between the endosymbiont and the host.

A Native Wolbachia Endosymbiont Does Not Limit Dengue Virus Infection in the Mosquito Aedes notoscriptus (Diptera: Culicidae).

The endosymbiotic bacterium Wolbachia pipientis infects many species of insects and has been transinfected into the mosquito Aedes aegypti (L.), the primary vector of dengue virus (DENV). Recently, it has been shown that Wolbachia blocks the replication and transmission of RNA viruses, such as DENV, in a number of mosquito species including Ae. aegypti and Aedes albopictus (Skuse), which is naturally infected with Wolbachia and considered a secondary vector for DENV. The mosquito species Aedes notoscriptus (Skuse) is highly prevalent in Australia, including in areas where DENV outbreaks have been recorded. The mosquito has been implicated in the transmission of Ross River and Barmah Forest viruses, but not DENV. We investigated whether Wolbachia naturally infects this mosquito species and whether it has an impact on the ability of Ae. notoscriptus to transmit DENV. We show, for the first time, that Ae. notoscriptus is naturally infected with a strain of Wolbachia that belongs to supergroup B and is localized only in the ovaries. However, Wolbachia infection in Ae. notoscriptus did not induce resistance to DENV and had no effect on overall DENV infection rate or titer. The presence of a native Wolbachia in Ae. notoscriptus cannot explain why this mosquito is an ineffective vector of DENV.

Wolbachia uses a host microRNA to regulate transcripts of a methyltransferase, contributing to dengue virus inhibition in Aedes aegypti.

The endosymbiont Wolbachia is common among insects and known for the reproductive manipulations it exerts on hosts as well as inhibition of virus replication in their hosts. Recently, we showed that Wolbachia uses host microRNAs to manipulate host gene expression for its efficient maintenance in the dengue mosquito vector, Aedes aegypti. Cytosine methylation is mediated by a group of proteins called DNA (cytosine-5) methyltransferases, which are structurally and functionally conserved from prokaryotes to eukaryotes. The biological functions of cytosine methylation include host defense, genome stability, gene regulation, developmental promotion of organs, and lifespan regulation. Ae. aegypti has only one DNA methyltransferase gene (AaDnmt2) belonging to the cytosine methyltransferase family 2, which is the most deeply conserved and widely distributed gene among metazoans. Here, we show that in mosquitoes the introduced endosymbiont, Wolbachia, significantly suppresses expression of AaDnmt2, but dengue virus induces expression of AaDnmt2. Interestingly, we found that aae-miR-2940 microRNA, which is exclusively expressed in Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes, down-regulates the expression of AaDnmt2. Reversely, overexpression of AaDnmt2 in mosquito cells led to inhibition of Wolbachia replication, but significantly promoted replication of dengue virus, suggesting a causal link between this Wolbachia manipulation and the blocking of dengue replication in Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes. In addition, our findings provide an explanation for hypomethylation of the genome in Wolbachia-infected Ae. aegypti.

Dietary cholesterol modulates pathogen blocking by Wolbachia.

The bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia pipientis protects its hosts from a range of pathogens by limiting their ability to form infections inside the insect. This "pathogen blocking" could be explained by innate immune priming by the symbiont, competition for host-derived resources between pathogens and Wolbachia, or the direct modification of the cell or cellular environment by Wolbachia. Recent comparative work in Drosophila and the mosquito Aedes aegypti has shown that an immune response is not required for pathogen blocking, implying that there must be an additional component to the mechanism. Here we have examined the involvement of cholesterol in pathogen blocking using a system of dietary manipulation in Drosophila melanogaster in combination with challenge by Drosophila C virus (DCV), a common fly pathogen. We observed that flies reared on cholesterol-enriched diets infected with the Wolbachia strains wMelPop and wMelCS exhibited reduced pathogen blocking, with viral-induced mortality occurring 2-5 days earlier than flies reared on Standard diet. This shift toward greater virulence in the presence of cholesterol also corresponded to higher viral copy numbers in the host. Interestingly, an increase in dietary cholesterol did not have an effect on Wolbachia density except in one case, but this did not directly affect the strength of pathogen blocking. Our results indicate that host cholesterol levels are involved with the ability of Wolbachia-infected flies to resist DCV infections, suggesting that cholesterol contributes to the underlying mechanism of pathogen blocking.