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Bacterial diversity of cosmopolitan Culex pipiens and invasive Aedes japonicus from Germany

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Abstract

Symbiotic bacteria have gained significant attention in recent years. For example, microbiota of some mosquito species seems to influence the development and transmission of pathogens. Furthermore, several attempts using bacteria as a paratransgenetic tool have been made in order to assist the control of mosquito-borne diseases. In this study, we examined the bacterial diversity of wild-caught adult Culex (Cx.) pipiens and laboratory-reared adult Aedes japonicus (Ae. japonicus) in Germany using a culture-independent method. Genomic DNA was extracted from each specimen and submitted to PCR amplification of eubacterial 16S rDNA. After the cloning reaction, 28 bacterial transformants per sample containing the 16S rDNA inserts were selected per each sample for sequencing. The analysed specimens of Cx. pipiens as well as of Ae. japonicus showed a diverse bacterial community including some common bacterial genera. Blast analysis allowed to identify 21 bacterial genera belonging to 2 phyla among the 23 specimens of Cx. pipiens. The 14 analysed Ae. japonicus revealed 11 bacterial genera belonging to 3 phyla. In both mosquito species, identified isolates were mainly Proteobacteria. Only 4 of the bacterial genera were found in both mosquito species, with the most prevalent genera Sphingomonas and Rahnella in Cx. pipiens and in Ae. japonicus respectively. Most of the bacterial genera found in our study have been identified in other mosquito species before. Due to the currently scarce data situation, ongoing examinations on the very abundant bacterial genera or species are strongly required to determine their relevance for the biology and adaptiveness of mosquitoes including pathogen-host relationship.

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Acknowledgements

This present research was funded by the ERA-Net BiodivERsA, with the national funders DFG KL 2087/6-1, FWF I-1437 and ANR-13-EBID-0007-01 as part of the 2012-13 BiodivERsA call for research proposals and by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) through the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE), grant number 2819105115 as well as by the Uniscientia Foundation (P 121-2017). We thank Birgit Nagel and Gabriele Elter for their technical assistance in the molecular laboratory. We also thank Dr. Rüdiger Berghahn and Ronny Schmiediche from the German Federal Environmental Agency (UBA) in Berlin for mosquito sampling.

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Zotzmann, S., Steinbrink, A., Schleich, K. et al. Bacterial diversity of cosmopolitan Culex pipiens and invasive Aedes japonicus from Germany. Parasitol Res 116, 1899–1906 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-017-5466-2

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