Selected Grantee Publications

The Incompetence of Mosquitoes—Can Zika Virus Be Adapted to Infect Culex tarsalis Cells?

Gallichotte et al., mSphere . 2023.

https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/msphere.00015-23?rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed&url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org

Zika virus (ZIKV) is transmitted between humans by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. However, the 2015 to 2017 outbreak raised questions regarding the role of Culex species mosquitoes in transmission. Investigators attempted to adapt ZIKV to C. tarsalis by serially passaging the virus on cocultured A. aegypti and C. tarsalis cells to identify viral determinants of species specificity. Next-generation sequencing of cocultured virus passages revealed variants of interest that were engineered into nine recombinant viruses. None of these viruses showed increased infection of Culex cells or mosquitoes. Thus, although ZIKV might infect Culex mosquitoes occasionally, Aedes mosquitoes likely drive transmission and human risk. Supported by ORIP (T32OD010437) and NIAID.