Gut microbiota

Background: Vector-borne pathogens must survive and replicate in the hostile environment in the insect midgut before successful transmission. The insect midgut bacteria can have a modulatory effect on their vectorial capacity. At the same time, the relationship between infection, temperature and the mosquito microbiome are not well characterized.Methodology/ Principal findings: This study aimed to delineate the effect of Zika virus (ZIKV) infection and temperature variation on the microbial profile of Aedes albopictus mosquitoes. Ae. albopictus were reared at diurnal temperature of day 28°C/ night 24°C and day 30?C/ night 26?C. Mosquitoes were given infectious blood meals with 8.3 log10 PFU/ml ZIKV and 16S rRNA sequencing was performed on guts at 7 days post infectious bloodmeal exposure.ZIKV significantly reduced the gut taxa diversity [Chao1 Index P(1.1106e-05)] while increase in temperature increased the gut taxa richness [Shannon index P (0.022377)]. To the best of our knowledge, we identified Neoasaia for the first time in the midgut of an arthropod vector. A positive correlation between ZIKV and Neoasaia was identified [Spearman r - 0.6503; P (0.0026)] as well as a negative correlation between Elizabethkingia and ZIKV [Pearson r =0.7084; R2= 0.5018; P (0.0327)]. Additional taxa that could potentially act as modulators of ZIKV infection in Ae. albopictus mosquitoes were identified.The findings of this study demonstrate that both temperature and ZIKV infection modulate the midgut microbial profile of Ae. albopictus mosquitoes. This may impact arbovirus transmission dynamics in future climate change scenario.