Single mosquito metatranscriptomics identifies vectors, emerging pathogens and reservoirs in one assay

• DOI: 10.7554/elife.68353
• Publication Date: 2021-04-27T12:47:15Z
• Authors: Joshua Batson; Gytis Dudas; Eric Haas-Stapleton; Amy L Kistler; Lucy M Li; Phoenix Logan; Kalani Ratnasiri; Hanna Retallack
• Keywords: Blood meal

Mosquitoes are major infectious disease-carrying vectors. Assessment of current and future risks associated with the mosquito population requires knowledge full repertoire pathogens they carry, including novel viruses, as well their blood meal sources. Unbiased metatranscriptomic sequencing individual mosquitoes offers a straightforward, rapid, quantitative means to acquire this information. Here, we profile 148 diverse wild-caught collected in California detect sequences from eukaryotes, prokaryotes, 24 known 46 viral species. Importantly, individuals greatly enhanced value biological information obtained. It allowed us (a) speciate host mosquito, (b) compute prevalence each microbe recognize high frequency co-infections, (c) associate animal specific sources, (d) apply simple co-occurrence methods recover previously undetected components highly prevalent segmented viruses. In context emerging diseases, where about vectors, pathogens, reservoirs is lacking, approaches described here can provide actionable for public health surveillance intervention decisions.