Mosquitoes, beyond being a daily nuisance, serve as common vectors for virus transmission, including diseases like malaria, yellow fever, and dengue fever.
With global climate change, the breeding rate and disease transmission capabilities of mosquitoes have been enhanced. The emerging trend of vector-borne diseases caused by arthropod-borne viruses is steadily rising, posing a serious challenge to global public health. However, our current understanding of the diversity of viruses carried by common vector organisms such as mosquitoes and their biogeographical patterns remains limited.
On March 22nd, a collaborative team from Sun Yat-sen University, BGI Research Institute, and Fudan University published their latest research findings in Nature Ecology & Evolution. The collaborative team conducted a nationwide study on mosquito-borne virus communities, revealing the diversity of viruses carried by various mosquitoes in different habitats, the influencing factors of transmission distribution, and the geographic lineage characteristics. This multidimensional approach provides important new insights into the study of mosquito-borne virus communities.
Research Illustration: Diversity of Mosquito-Borne Viruses under Different Conditions
Over the span of 5 years, a research team collected 2438 individual mosquitoes from 82 counties across 23 provinces in China, representing various ecological environments including densely populated areas and border regions. Utilizing the T-series sequencing platform developed by BGI, the team conducted transcriptome sequencing on individual mosquitoes, establishing the most extensive and geographically diverse dataset of mosquito-borne viruses to date. They identified 393 mosquito-associated viruses, with 63% being potential new species, including three potential pathogenic vector-borne virus species. This discovery significantly expands the known diversity and novelty of mosquito-borne viruses.
Further analysis revealed that the composition and abundance of viruses at both individual and population levels are closely related to factors such as host phylogeny, climate, and land use types. The study identified Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti as hotspots for virus diversity, with regions characterized by suitable temperatures, abundant rainfall, and high mammalian diversity being hotspots for mosquito diversity. This finding provides solid evidence for the pathogen diversity hotspot hypothesis.
The research quantified the correspondence between mosquito-borne viruses and their host specificity for the first time, showing a continuum of host specificity from specialization to generalization. Understanding this potential characteristic of viruses is crucial for disease prevention and control.
Additionally, the genetic similarity between mosquito populations in different regions is highly correlated with the number of shared virus species among populations. This suggests that mosquito population dispersal may be a key driver of long-distance virus transmission and the formation of large-scale biogeographic patterns.
Global Pathogen Database Construction
"This study significantly expands the known circle of mosquito-borne viruses, providing comprehensive genomic and ecological data resources. By linking the diversity of mosquito-borne viruses at the individual level with the national-scale biogeographic pattern, it offers a new understanding of the virome of vector insects," said Sheng Mang, co-corresponding author and professor at Sun Yat-sen University.
To detect and monitor pathogens that may infect humans and animals, BGI launched the Global Pathogen Database project in 2020. This project aims to detect and discover zoonotic pathogens at the genomic level, promoting proactive disease prevention mechanisms and providing solid and comprehensive data support for discovering, predicting, and monitoring existing and potential zoonotic pathogens.
Junhua Li, co-corresponding author and researcher at BGI-Shenzhen, stated, "BGI-Shenzhen's pathogenomics team will continue to build a pathogen data platform, integrating multidimensional information on various pathogens, vectors, and ecology, to provide big data support for biological security and the monitoring and early warning of natural epidemic sources and diseases."
The research complies with ethical and data security laws and regulations. All data generated by this study are stored in the Shenzhen National GeneBank Life Big Data Platform Sequence Archive System.
For more information, refer to the related paper: DOI: 10.1038/s41559-024-02365-0
