Abstract:
BACKGROUND: Mosquito-borne diseases involving arboviruses represent expanding threats to sub-Saharan Africa
imposing as considerable burden to human and veterinary public health. In Mozambique over one hundred
species of potential arbovirus mosquito vectors have been identified, although their precise role in maintaining
such viruses in circulation in the country remains to be elucidated. The aim of this study was to screen for the
presence of flaviviruses, alphaviruses and bunyaviruses in mosquitoes from different regions of Mozambique.
RESULTS: Our survey analyzed 14,519 mosquitoes, and the results obtained revealed genetically distinct insectspecific flaviviruses, detected in multiple species of mosquitoes from different genera. In addition, smaller flaviviruslike NS5 sequences, frequently detected in Mansonia seemed to correspond to defective viral sequences, present as
viral DNA forms. Furthermore, three lineages of putative members of the Phenuiviridae family were also detected,
two of which apparently corresponding to novel viral genetic lineages.
CONCLUSION: This study reports for the first-time novel insect-specific flaviviruses and novel phenuiviruses, as well as
frequent flavivirus-like viral DNA forms in several widely known vector species. This unique work represents recent
investigation of virus screening conducted in mosquitoes from Mozambique and an important contribution to
inform the establishment of a vector control program for arbovirus in the country and in the region.
Description:
Additional file 1: Supplementary Figure 1. Microscopic observation of C6/36 cells mock-infected cells (A; 300×), or after infection (day 3) with viruses present in three independent pools of Ma. uniformis, An. ziemani, and An. pretoriensis mosquitoes collected in Mozambique.
Additional file 2.
Additional file 3: Supplementary Table 1. PCR primers and thermal profiles used in this work.
