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. 2021 Nov 5;13(11):2232.
doi: 10.3390/v13112232.

Geographic Partitioning of Dengue Virus Transmission Risk in Florida

Caroline J Stephenson  1   2 , Heather Coatsworth  1   3 , Christy M Waits  1   3   4 , Nicole M Nazario-Maldonado  1   3 , Derrick K Mathias  1   5 , Rhoel R Dinglasan  1   3 , John A Lednicky  1   2
Affiliations

Geographic Partitioning of Dengue Virus Transmission Risk in Florida

Caroline J Stephenson et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

Dengue viruses (DENVs) cause the greatest public health burden globally among the arthropod-borne viruses. DENV transmission risk has also expanded from tropical to subtropical regions due to the increasing range of its principal mosquito vector, Aedes aegypti. Focal outbreaks of dengue fever (dengue) in the state of Florida (FL) in the USA have increased since 2009. However, little is known about the competence of Ae. aegypti populations across different regions of FL to transmit DENVs. To understand the effects of DENV genotype and serotype variations on vector susceptibility and transmission potential in FL, we orally infected a colony of Ae. aegypti (Orlando/ORL) with low passage or laboratory DENV-1 through -4. Low passage DENVs were more infectious to and had higher transmission potential by ORL mosquitoes. We used these same DENVs to examine natural Ae. aegypti populations to determine whether spatial distributions correlated with differential vector competence. Vector competence across all DENV serotypes was greater for mosquitoes from areas with the highest dengue incidence in south FL compared to north FL. Vector competence for low passage DENVs was significantly higher, revealing that transmission risk is influenced by virus/vector combinations. These data support a targeted mosquito-plus-pathogen screening approach to more accurately estimate DENV transmission risk.

Keywords: Aedes aegypti; Florida; dengue virus; transmission potential.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Aedes aegypti collection locations for four field-derived colonies from different historical DENV risk zones and one laboratory colony in Florida, USA., with reported kdr genotype frequency distributions for pyrethroid insecticide resistance shown as part-of-whole graphs.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Infection rates and transmission potentials of Floridian Aedes aegypti mosquitoes (exposed to (A) DENV-1 Haiti, (B) DENV-1 laboratory, (C) DENV-2 laboratory, (D) DENV-3 laboratory, (E) DENV-4 Haiti, (F) DENV-4 laboratory) were highest for south FL (COL and MD) and laboratory (ORL) populations with low passage virus strains (DENV-1 H and DENV-4 H). Differences in alphabetical capital letters (A or B) denote statistical significance between infection rates within each virus group. Differences in lowercase letters (a, b, c, or d) denote statistical significance between transmission potentials within each virus group. Bars are averaged from three experimental replicates. Groups without any statistically significant differences do not have any alphabetical letter labeling. Significance is measured using an alpha level of 0.05 via multilevel logistic regression (infection rates) or binary logistic regression (transmission potentials).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Infection intensities for Floridian Aedes aegypti (exposed to (A) DENV-1 Haiti, (B) DENV-1 laboratory, (C) DENV-2 laboratory, (D) DENV-3 laboratory, (E) DENV-4 Haiti, (F) DENV-4 laboratory) were elevated for low passage DENV strains (DENV-1 H and DENV-4 H) compared to laboratory virus strains. Differences in alphabetical capital letters (A, B, C) denote statistical significance between midgut infection intensities within each virus group. Differences in lowercase letters (a or b) denote statistical significance between saliva infection intensities within each virus group. Groups without any statistically significant differences do not have any alphabetical letter labeling. Significance is measured using an alpha level of 0.05 via mixed methods ANOVA.
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