AUTHOR=Minard Guillaume , Tran Florence-Hélène , Dubost Audrey , Tran-Van Van , Mavingui Patrick , Valiente Moro Claire 

TITLE=Pyrosequencing 16S rRNA genes of bacteria associated with wild tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus: a pilot study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

VOLUME=4

YEAR=2014

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cellular-and-infection-microbiology/articles/10.3389/fcimb.2014.00059

DOI=10.3389/fcimb.2014.00059

ISSN=2235-2988

ABSTRACT=<p>The Asian tiger mosquito <italic>Aedes</italic> (Stegomya) <italic>albopictus</italic> is an invasive species that has spread across the world in the last two decades, showing a great capacity to adapt to contrasting climates and environments. While demonstrated in many insects, the contribution of bacterial symbionts in <italic>Aedes</italic> ecology is a challenging aspect that needs to be investigated. Also some bacterial species have already been identified in <italic>Ae. albopictus</italic> using classical methods, but a more accurate survey of mosquito-associated bacterial diversity is needed to decipher the potential biological functions of bacterial symbionts in mediating or constraining insect adaptation. We surveyed the bacteria associated with field populations of <italic>Ae. albopictus</italic> from Madagascar by pyrosequencing 16S rRNA gene amplicons. Different aspects of amplicon preparation and sequencing depth were tested to optimize the breadth of bacterial diversity identified. The results revealed that all mosquitoes collected from different sites have a bacterial microbiota dominated by a single taxon, <italic>Wolbachia pipientis</italic>, which accounted for about 99% of all 92,615 sequences obtained. As <italic>Ae. albopictus</italic> is known to harbor two <italic>Wolbachia</italic> strains (<italic>w</italic>AlbA and <italic>w</italic>AlbB), a quantitative PCR was used to estimate the relative densities, (i.e., the bacteria-to-host gene ratios) of each strains in individual mosquitoes. Relative densities were between 6.25 × 10<sup>0.01</sup> and 5.47 × 10<sup>0.1</sup> for <italic>w</italic>AlbA and between 2.03 × 10<sup>0.1</sup> and 1.4 × 10<sup>1</sup> for <italic>w</italic>AlbB. Apart from <italic>Wolbachia</italic>, a total of 31 bacterial taxa were identified at the genus level using different method variations. Diversity index values were low and probably underestimated the true diversity due to the high abundance of <italic>Wolbachia</italic> sequences vastly outnumbering sequences from other taxa. Further studies should implement alternative strategies to specifically discard from analysis any sequences from <italic>Wolbachia</italic>, the dominant endosymbiotic bacterium in <italic>Ae. albopictus</italic> from this area.</p>