Successive blood meals enhance virus dissemination within mosquitoes and increase transmission potential.

ABSTRACT: The recent Zika virus (ZIKV) and chikungunya virus epidemics highlight the explosive nature of arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) transmitted by Aedes spp. mosquitoes^1,2. Vector competence and the extrinsic incubation period (EIP) are two key entomological parameters used to assess the public health risk posed by arboviruses³. These are typically measured empirically by offering mosquitoes an infectious blood meal and temporally sampling mosquitoes to determine the infection and transmission status. This approach has been used for the better part of a century; however, it does not accurately capture the biology and behaviour of many mosquito vectors that refeed frequently (every 2-3 d)⁴. Here, we demonstrate that acquisition of a second non-infectious bl

SUBMITTER: Armstrong PM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7199921 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature