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Emergence of Zika Virus in Culex tritaeniorhynchus and Anopheles sinensis Mosquitoes in China

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
  • Published:
Virologica Sinica

Abstract

Zika virus (ZIKV) has been isolated from mosquitoes such as Aedes, Mansonia uniformis, and Culex perfuscus; However, the isolation of ZIKV from Anopheles sinensis and Culex tritaeniorhynchus has not yet been reported. In June and July 2018, 22,985 mosquitoes and 57,500 midges were collected in Jiangxi Province in southeastern China. Among them, six strains of ZIKV were isolated from mosquitoes: four from An. sinensis and two from Cx. tritaeniorhynchus. Molecular genetic analysis showed that the ZIKV isolated from An. sinensis and Cx. tritaeniorhynchus belonged to genotype 2 in the Asian evolutionary branch of ZIKV. In addition, the ZIKV strains isolated from An. sinensis and Cx. tritaeniorhynchus had amino acid substitutions identical to ZIKV strains prevalent in South America since 2015. This study is the first to isolate ZIKV from mosquito specimens collected in the wild of Jiangxi Province, China; This is also the first time that ZIKV has been isolated from An. sinensis and Cx. tritaeniorhynchus. Given that An. sinensis and Cx. tritaeniorhynchus have a very wide geographical distribution in China and even in eastern and southern Asia, the isolation of several strains of ZIKV from these two mosquitoes poses new challenges for the prevention and control of ZIKV infection in the mainland of China and countries and regions with the same distribution of mosquitoes.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the National Science and Technology Major Project (2018ZX10711001, 2018ZX10102001); The National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFC1200202); Science and Technology Project of Jiangxi (2014BBG70097) and Development Grant of State Key Laboratory of Infectious Disease Prevention and Control (2014SKLID103, 2015SKLID505). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the article.

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Author notes

  1. Jing Wang, Hongbin Xu, Song Song and Rui Cheng these authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Qingdao University, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Jing Wang, Rui Cheng, Na Fan & Xiaoqing Lu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, 102206, China

    Jing Wang, Rui Cheng, Na Fan, Shihong Fu, Ziqian Xu, Ying He, Wenwen Lei, Fan Li, Huanyu Wang & Guodong Liang

  3. Jiangxi Province Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Nanchang, 330029, China

    Hongbin Xu & Shaozai Zhang

  4. Qingdao Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Song Song

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  1. Jing Wang
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Contributions

JW, HX, SS and RC collected specimens, performed the experiments, analyzed the data and drafted the paper; NF, SF helped to perform the experiments and analyze the data; SZ, ZX, YH, WL and FL helped to collect specimens and analyze the data; HW,XL, GL conceived and designed the research study, analyzed the data and finalized the paper. All authors read and approved the final version of the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Huanyu Wang, Xiaoqing Lu or Guodong Liang.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Animal and Human Rights Statement

All animal experiments were conducted in strict compliance with the regulations set by the Animal Ethics Committee of China CDC.

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Wang, J., Xu, H., Song, S. et al. Emergence of Zika Virus in Culex tritaeniorhynchus and Anopheles sinensis Mosquitoes in China. Virol. Sin. 36, 33–42 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12250-020-00239-w

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