West Nile virus, Anopheles flavivirus, a novel flavivirus as well as Merida-like rhabdovirus Turkey in field-collected mosquitoes from Thrace and Anatolia.

Mosquitoes are involved in the transmission and maintenance of several viral diseases with significant health impact. Biosurveillance efforts have also revealed insect-specific viruses, observed to cocirculate with pathogenic strains. This report describes the findings of flavivirus and rhabdovirus screening, performed in eastern Thrace and Aegean region of Anatolia during 2016, including and expanding on locations with previously-documented virus activity. A mosquito cohort of 1545 individuals comprising 14 species were collected and screened in 108 pools via generic and specific amplification and direct metagenomics by next generation sequencing. Seven mosquito pools (6.4%) were positive in the flavivirus screening. West Nile virus lineage 1 clade 1a sequences were characterized in a pool Culex pipiens sensu lato specimens, providing the initial virus detection in Aegean region following 2010 outbreak. In an Anopheles maculipennis sensu lato pool, sequences closely-related to Anopheles flaviviruses were obtained, with similarities to several African and Australian strains of this new insect-specific flavivirus clade. In pools comprising Uranotaenia unguiculata (n=3), Cx. pipiens s.l. (n=1) and Aedes caspius (n=1) mosquitoes, sequences of a novel flavivirus, distantly-related to Flavivirus AV2011, identified previously in Spain and Turkey, were characterized. Moreover, DNA forms of the novel flavivirus were detected in two Ur. unguiculata pools. These sequences were highly-similar to the sequences amplified from viral RNA, with undisrupted reading frames, suggest the occurrence of viral DNA forms in natural conditions within mosquito hosts. Rhabdovirus screening revealed sequences of a recently-described novel virus, named the Merida-like virus Turkey (MERDLVT) in 5 Cx. pipiens s.l. pools (4.6%). Partial L and N gene sequences of MERDLVT were well-conserved among strains, with evidence for geographical clustering in phylogenetic analyses. Metagenomics provided the near-full genomic sequence in a specimen, revealing an identical genome organization and limited divergence from the prototype MERDLVT isolate.

Establishment of a satellite rearing facility to support the release of sterile Aedes albopictus males. I. Optimization of mass rearing parameters.

The vector species Aedes albopictus (Skuse, 1894) was recorded in Turkey for the first time, near the Greek border, in 2011 and a high risk of expansion towards Aegean and Mediterranean coasts of Turkey was estimated. A preliminary study was planned to evaluate the possibility of creating a satellite mass rearing facility for this species and manage a larval rearing procedure by using the new mass-rearing technology proposed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). For this purpose, the effects of different larval densities (1, 2, 3 and 4 larvae per ml) on the preimaginal development were evaluated by observing pupal, adult and male productivity using life cycle trials. Geometric morphometric analyses were also performed to define all phenotypic differences that occurred on the wing size and shape morphology of adult stage at the four different rearing conditions tested. A high pupation productivity was obtained with a larval density of 2 larvae/ml while adult emergence ratio was not affected by the densities tested. No significant difference was observed in shape of the wings among different densities in males and females. Nevertheless, a significant difference in female's centroid sizes was observed between the treatment groups 1-2 and 3-4 larvae/ml and in males centroid size reared at 1 larvae/ml versus the other densities.