Data from: Identification of Swedish mosquitoes based on molecular barcoding of the COI gene and SNP analysis

Mosquito-borne infectious diseases are emerging in many regions of the world. Consequently, surveillance of mosquitoes and concomitant infectious agents is of great importance for prediction and prevention of mosquito-borne infectious diseases. Currently, morphological identification of mosquitoes is the traditional procedure. However, sequencing of specified genes or standard genomic regions, DNA barcoding, has recently been suggested as a global standard for identification and classification of many different species. Our aim was to develop a genetic method to identify mosquitoes and to study their relationship. Mosquitoes were captured at collection sites in northern Sweden and identified morphologically before the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene sequences of 14 of the most common mosquito species were determined. The sequences obtained were then used for phylogenetic placement, for validation and benchmarking of phenetic classifications, and finally to develop a hierarchical PCR-based typing scheme based on single nucleotide polymorphism sites (SNPs) to enable rapid genetic identification, circumventing the need for morphological characterization. The results showed that exact phylogenetic relationships between mosquito taxa were preserved at shorter evolutionary distances, but at deeper levels they could not be inferred with confidence by using COI gene sequence data alone. Fourteen of the most common mosquito species in Sweden were identified by the SNP/PCR-based typing scheme, demonstrating that genetic typing using SNPs of the COI gene is a useful method for identification of mosquitoes with potential for worldwide application.

蚊媒传染病（Mosquito-borne infectious diseases）在全球诸多地区呈新发态势。因此，对蚊虫及其携带的病原体开展监测，对于蚊媒传染病的预测与防控具有重要意义。当前，蚊虫的形态学鉴定仍是主流的鉴定流程。不过，近年来有研究提出，对特定基因或标准基因组区域进行测序的DNA条形码（DNA barcoding）技术，可作为全球范围内多数物种鉴定与分类的统一标准。本研究旨在开发一种用于蚊虫鉴定的遗传学方法，并探究蚊虫类群间的演化关系。研究样本采自瑞典北部的多个采集点，研究人员先对捕获的蚊虫进行形态学鉴定，随后对14种最常见蚊虫的细胞色素c氧化酶亚基I（COI）基因序列进行测定。所得序列随后被用于系统发育定位、表型分类的验证与基准比对，最终研究人员基于单核苷酸多态性位点（SNPs）开发了一套层级式聚合酶链式反应（PCR）分型方案，以实现快速的遗传学鉴定，无需依赖形态学表征。研究结果显示，蚊虫类群间的精准系统发育关系在较短演化距离下可得以保留，但在较深的演化层级上，仅依靠COI基因序列数据无法可靠推断此类关系。本研究所开发的SNP/PCR分型方案可鉴定瑞典地区的14种常见蚊虫，这表明基于COI基因单核苷酸多态性的遗传学分型技术是一种实用的蚊虫鉴定方法，具备全球推广应用的潜力。