Zika virus infection and temperature significantly impact Aedes albopictus gut microbiota

Background: Vector-borne pathogens must survive and replicate in the hostile environment in the insect gut before successful transmission. The insect gut bacteria can have a modulatory effect on their vectorial capacity. The relationship between infection, temperature and the mosquito gut microbiome are not well characterized. Methodology/ Principal findings: This study aimed to delineate the effect of Zika virus (ZIKV) infection and temperature variation on the microbial profile of Aedes albopictus mosquitoes. Ae. albopictus were reared at diurnal temperature of day 28 C/ night 24 C and day 30 C/ night 26 C. Mosquitoes were given infectious blood meals with 8.3 log10 PFU/ml ZIKV and 16S rRNA sequencing was performed on guts at 7 days post-infectious bloodmeal exposure. Blood meal acquisition and ZIKV exposure significantly reduced the gut taxa diversity while increase in temperature significantly altered the bacterial composition. A number of individual bacterial genera, most notably Elizabethkingia and Neoasaia, were found to be associated with blood meal digestion, ZIKV exposure and susceptibility to infection. To the best of our knowledge, we identified Neoasaia for the first time in the midgut of an arthropod vector. The findings of this study demonstrate that both temperature and ZIKV infection modulate the midgut microbial profile of Ae. albopictus mosquitoes. This may impact arbovirus transmission dynamics in future climate change scenarios and inform novel control strategies.