Wolbachia -Pathogen interactions Flashcards
Define population suppression.
Reduce the population to a level that is unable to sustain transmission.
Define population replacement
Wild type is replaced with individual refractory to pathogen transmission.
Asaia bacteria is in the midgut and salivary gland. What was the paratransgenesis experiment carried out?
Asaia was fused to antiplasmodial effector genes to secrete fusion proteins. This inhibited the development of parasite.
Name two tsetse fly symbionts.
Wigglesworthia and sodalis
What is the role of wigglesworthia?
Enables the tsetse fly to survive on just blood, and is involved in host immunity.
It resides in the milk gland organ of tsetse to transfer to larvae.
What paratransgenesis has been considered for sandflies?
transform commensal bacteria in the sandfly to express anti-leishmania compound by introducing transformed commensals to soil breeding sites for feeding larvae to take up.
What is the relationship between antibiotic use and vector competence?
Antibiotics will make the vector more susceptible to plasmodium as they knock down commensal bacteria in the gut. Also thought to make the vector survive for longer, so increasing transmission.
What is wolbachia-induced cytoplasmic incompatibility?
Introducing wolbachia infected males to mate with uninfected females produces unviable progeny. So can be used to crash mosquito populations.
What is the problem with using Wolbachia induced CI for population suppression?
Male competitiveness may mean the infected males are less attractive. Or there may be re-invasion from other mosquito populations as you wipe out one group.
Why is wMelPop, wolbachia from Drosophila used for Aedes aegypti?
because wolbachia is not naturally present in Aedes aegypti.
Explain the process of wolbachia transinfection
Grow up and establish wolbachia-mosquito cell line, microinjection into embryo at 30-45 minutes old when melanize, then select stably infected cell lines
How does wolbachia assist in Dengue control?
Blocks transmission in wolabachia infected Aedes aegypti
What effect did a superinfection of wMel and wAlbB in Aedes aegypti have?
Reduced DENV viral load in salivary gland more effectively than just wMel infection, with no change in longevity and fecundity.
Other than Dengue, what other VBDs may be controlled by Wolbachia?
Shown to reduce replication of Yellow fever virus.
Chikungunya - Reduction in transmission and viral load in saliva
Inhibit transmission of Zika and JEV
Why might wolbachia be difficult in controlling malaria?
There are many different vectors for malaria and we cannot target them all.
Mosquitoes are invasive so knock down one main malaria vector and may just increase another malaria vector that is currently less important.
