Wolbachia pipientis Genome sequencing. Wolbachia pipientis

The intracellular bacterium Wolbachia inhibits virus replication and is being harnessed around the world to fight mosquito-borne diseases through releases of mosquitoes carrying the symbiont. Wolbachia strains vary in their ability to invade mosquito populations and suppress viruses. Here we provide the complete genome of wAlbB-Uju, a variant of the Wolbachia strain wAlbB that is being used for the control of Dengue virus in Malaysia. wAlbB-Uju was purified from a laboratory line of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in which it was artificially transferred from its native host Aedes albopictus originating from Indonesia (Sulawesi island). The primary aim of this study was to sequence the genome of the wAlbB variant released in Malaysia and compare it to previously published wAlbB genomes. wAlbB-Uju was also sequenced from field-caught mosquitoes (wAlbB-Uju-MC, Mentari Court site) and compared to its laboratory counterpart to track genomic evolution that may have occured following mosquito releases in Malaysia.

胞内细菌沃尔巴克氏体（Wolbachia）可抑制病毒复制，目前全球范围内正通过释放携带该共生体的蚊子，利用其特性对抗蚊媒传染病。不同沃尔巴克氏体菌株在入侵蚊群与抑制病毒的能力上存在差异。本研究提供了wAlbB-Uju的完整基因组——该菌株是目前马来西亚用于登革病毒（Dengue virus）防控的wAlbB菌株变体。wAlbB-Uju从埃及伊蚊（Aedes aegypti）的实验室品系中纯化获得，该品系中的沃尔巴克氏体从其天然宿主——源自印度尼西亚苏拉威西岛的白纹伊蚊（Aedes albopictus）人工转移而来。本研究的主要目标是对马来西亚释放的该wAlbB变体的基因组进行测序，并与已发表的wAlbB基因组进行对比分析。此外，本研究还从野外捕获的蚊子（wAlbB-Uju-MC，采集点为Mentari Court）中对wAlbB-Uju进行了测序，并将其与实验室来源的对应菌株进行比对，以追踪马来西亚实施蚊子释放后可能发生的基因组演化情况。