Survival effects of antibiotic exposure during the larval and adult stages in the West Nile virus vector Culex pipiens

Abstract

The ability of mosquitoes to transmit a pathogen is affected, among other factors, by their survival rate, which is partly modulated by their microbiota. Mosquito microbiota is acquired during the larval phase and modified during their development and adult feeding behavior, being highly dependent on environmental factors. Pharmaceutical residues including antibiotics are widespread pollutants potentially being present in mosquito breeding waters likely affecting their microbiota. Here, we used Culex pipiens mosquitoes to assess the impact of antibiotic exposure during the larval and adult stages on the survival rate of adult mosquitoes. Wild‐collected larvae were randomly assigned to two treatments: larvae maintained in water supplemented with antibiotics and control larvae. Emerged adults were subsequently assigned to each of two treatments, fed with sugar solution with antibiotics and fed only with sugar solution (controls). Larval exposure to antibiotics significantly increased the survival rate of adult females that received a control diet. In addition, the effect of adult exposure to antibiotics on the survival rate of both male and female mosquitoes depended on the number of days that larvae fed ad libitum in the laboratory before emergence. In particular, shorter larval ad libitum feeding periods reduced the survival rate of antibiotic‐treated adult mosquitoes compared with those that emerged after a longer larval feeding period. These differences were not found in control adult mosquitoes. Our results extend the current understanding of the impact of antibiotic exposure of mosquitoes on a key component of vectorial capacity, that is the vector survival rate.

A tangled threesome: understanding arbovirus infection in Aedes spp. and the effect of the mosquito microbiota

“…The characterization of mosquitoes microbiota in terms of fungi, bacteria, and viruses from different regions is important ( Supplementary Figures 1 – 3 ), to get a better knowledge of the common microbiota presence, geographical patterns and to detected associations with arbovirus transmission (Olmo et al, 2023 ), being important to use different molecular markers (Frankel-Bricker and Frankel, 2022 ; Schrieke et al, 2022 ), with special focus on fungus since its characterization remains scarce (Angleró-Rodríguez et al, 2017 ; Zakrzewski et al, 2018 ; Luis et al, 2019 ; Guégan et al, 2020 ; Ramos-Nino et al, 2020 ) and go further characterizing the transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic networks, that are driving the interactions among the microbiota, with the mosquito and arboviruses. Another important topic is how the mosquitoes exposure to antibiotics could change their microbioma affecting its vectorial competence (Garrigós et al, 2023 ).…”