Detection of arboviruses in mosquitoes: Evidence of circulation of chikungunya virus in Iran

PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2020 Jun 30;14(6):e0008135. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0008135. eCollection 2020 Jun.

Abstract

Mosquitoes are vectors of viruses affecting animal and human health. In Iran, the prevalence of mosquito-borne viruses remains poorly investigated. Once infected, mosquito females remain infected for all their life making virus detections possible at early steps before infections are reported in vertebrate hosts. In this study, we used a recently developed high-throughput chip based on the BioMark Dynamic arrays system capable of detecting 37 arboviruses in a single experiment. A total of 1,212 mosquitoes collected in Mazandaran, North-Khorasan, and Fars provinces of Iran were analyzed. Eighteen species were identified, belonging to five genera; the most prevalent species were Anopheles maculipennis s.l. (42.41%), Culex pipiens (19.39%), An. superpictus (11.72%), and Cx. tritaeniorhynchus (10.64%). We detected chikungunya virus (CHIKV) of the Asian genotype in six mosquito pools collected in North Khorasan and Mazandaran provinces. To our knowledge, this is the first report of mosquitoes infected with CHIKV in Iran. Our high-throughput screening method can be proposed as a novel epidemiological surveillance tool to identify circulating arboviruses and to support preparedness to an epidemic in animals and humans.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Chikungunya virus / isolation & purification*
  • Culicidae / classification
  • Culicidae / virology*
  • Female
  • Iran
  • Male

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the MATI Program of the Institut Pasteur International Network “ENVIRONmental changes and MOSquito-borne diseases: the example of West Nile (Environ-MOS)”. It was also partially supported by grants from The French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health (ANSES), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under ZIKAlliance Grant Agreement no. 734548 and the 2014 PTR Anses-Institut Pasteur project (N° 511) for CHIPARBO. HB, as a Ph.D. student of medical biotechnology also received scholarships from education office of IP Iran, IP Paris, and Campus France. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.