Detection and phylogeny of Wolbachia in field-collected Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti from Manila City, Philippines

BackgroundWolbachia is the most common bacterial endosymbiont of arthropods, such as the medically important Aedes albopictus and recent reports also detected in Aedes aegypti. Our study showed additional support for the presence of wolbachia in Ae. albopictus and Ae. aegypti using Wolbachia specific markers, wsp, and 16S. Main textThis study collected 12 adult Ae. albopictus and 359 Ae. aegypti from 183 households in a dengue-prone area, Manila, Philippines, between June and September 2017. Aedes larvae (n = 509) were also collected from 17 water containers from 11 households. The DNA of the Aedes larvae and adults were screened for the presence of Wolbachia using the wsp and 16S markers, following optimized polymerase chain reaction (PCR) conditions, and sequenced. Our results showed that 3 out of 359 (0.84%) adult Ae. aegypti and 12 out of 12 (100%) adult Ae. albopictus were Wolbachia positive, whereas all larvae tested negative for Wolbachia (0/509; 0%). The wsp marker revealed six Wolbachia-positive Ae. albopictus, whereas the 16S marker showed Wolbachia in three Ae. aegypti and ten Ae. albopictus ConclusionOur results suggest that the utilization of two Wolbachia specific markers, wsp and 16S demonstrated Wolbachia presence in individual Ae. albopictus and Ae. aegypti. The results of the Wolbachia infection in Ae. albopictus showed that the detected strains were from either supergroups A and B. Despite the low infection rate of Wolbachia in Ae. aegypti, our results demonstrated the presence of Wolbachia in field-collected Ae. aegypti supporting previous studies.