Bacterial communities associated with the midgut microbiota of wild Anopheles gambiae complex in Burkina Faso

Abstract

Plasmodium falciparum is transmitted by mosquitoes from the Anopheles gambiae sensu lato (s.l) species complex and is responsible for severe forms of malaria. The composition of the mosquitoes' microbiota plays a role in P. falciparum transmission, so we studied midgut bacterial communities of An. gambiae s.l from Burkina Faso. DNA was extracted from 17 pools of midgut of mosquitoes from the Anopheles gambiae complex from six localities in three climatic areas, including cotton-growing and cotton-free localities to include potential differences in insecticide selection pressure. The v3-v4 region of the 16S rRNA gene was targeted and sequenced using Illumina Miseq (2 × 250 nt). Diversity analysis was performed using QIIME and R software programs. The major bacterial phylum was Proteobacteria (97.2%) in all samples. The most abundant genera were Enterobacter (32.8%) and Aeromonas (29.8%), followed by Pseudomonas (11.8%), Acinetobacter (5.9%) and Thorsellia (2.2%). No statistical difference in operational taxonomic units (OTUs) was found (Kruskal-Wallis FDR-p > 0.05) among the different areas, fields or localities. Richness and diversity indexes (observed OTUs, Chao1, Simpson and Shannon indexes) showed significant differences in the cotton-growing fields and in the agroclimatic zones, mainly in the Sudano-Sahelian area. OTUs from seven bacterial species that mediate refractoriness to Plasmodium infection in An. gambiae s.l were detected. The beta diversity analysis did not show any significant difference. Therefore, a same control strategy of using bacterial species refractoriness to Plasmodium to target mosquito midgut bacterial community and affect their fitness in malaria transmission may be valuable tool for future malaria control efforts in Burkina Faso.

Microbiota Variation Across Life Stages of European Field-Caught Anopheles atroparvus and During Laboratory Colonization: New Insights for Malaria Research

“…atroparvus , the vast majority from the phylum Proteobacteria . Most of the bacterial taxa herein reported have been described as part of the microbiota in culicid mosquitoes ( Dada et al, 2014 ; Muturi et al, 2016 ; Rocha-David et al, 2016 ; Hegde et al, 2018 ; Kang et al, 2020 ) including Anopheles from different geographic regions ( Rani et al, 2009 ; Djadid et al, 2011 ; Wang et al, 2011 ; Boissiere et al, 2012 ; Gimonneau et al, 2014 ; Ngo et al, 2015 ; Bogale et al, 2020 ; Galeano-Castañeda et al, 2020 ; Zoure et al, 2020 ; Feng et al, 2021 ; Silva et al, 2021 ).…”

Diversity of midgut microbiota in laboratory-colonized and field-collected Aedes albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae): A preliminary study

“…The diversity of midgut microbiota has been studied and identified from various species of mosquitoes, primarily Anopheles mosquitoes ( Tainchum et al., 2020 ; Zoure et al., 2020 ). In contrast, studies of Aedes and Culex mosquitoes are limited ( Tiawsirisup et al., 2018 ; Muturi et al., 2020 ; Seabourn et al., 2020 ).…”

“…The diversity of the midgut microbiota has been examined in different species of mosquitoes ( Tiawsirisup et al., 2008 , 2018 ; Guegan et al., 2020 ; Zoure et al., 2020 ). Previous studies have evaluated the influence of colonized microbiota on the susceptibility of mosquitoes to virus and parasitic infection ( Pumpuni et al., 1996 ; Dillon and Dillon, 2004 ; Azambuja et al., 2005 ; Gusmao et al., 2007 ).…”

Bacterial Microbiome in Wild-Caught Anopheles Mosquitoes in Western Thailand

“…(Manguin et al, 2013). Other studies have reported the majority of adult mosquito midgut microbiota were Gram-negative species in the phylum Proteobacteria (Tandina et al, 2016;Zoure et al, 2020). At least three mosquitospecific bacterial species have been isolated from the midgut of African malaria vectors in the Gambiae Complex, including Thorsellia anophelis, Janibacter anophelis (Kampfer et al, 2006) and Elizabethkingia anophelis (Kampfer et al, 2011).…”