Blood meal host profiles of Aedes albopictus in neighborhoods of varying socioeconomic status

On-Demand

Presenting Author(s)

Chang-Hyun Kim

Associate Research Scientist
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, Illinois

Co-Author(s)

LC

Leta Chesser

University of Illinois
Champaign, Illinois
Jiayue Yan

Postdoctoral researcher
University of Illinois
Champaign, Illinois
AM

Andrew Mackay

Illinois Natural History Survey
Champaign, Illinois
Chris Stone

Director: Medical Entomology Laboratory
Illinois Natural History Survey
Champaign, Illinois

Analyzing blood-meal hosts of a mosquito vector can improve understanding of the biology and life-history of the vector and determines the range of vertebrate hosts of pathogens that the vector can potentially be exposed to. Here we examine what host species tend to be used by an invasive mosquito, Aedes albopictus, among residential neighborhoods that vary in environmental (e.g., canopy cover) and socioeconomic factors. A total of 477 Aedes albopictus engorged with a bloodmeal were analyzed by DNA sequencing. In order to minimize the problems associated with multiple blood hosts in Aedes albopictus, we chose to run Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) in the analysis. We prepared DNA libraries using PCR primers modified to be suitable for NGS, which produced 356-bp amplicons and ran MiSeq. We analyzed the resulting sequences using DADA2 pipeline and searched the blood hosts by BLAST. We found that Ae. albopictus utilized a wide variety of animals commonly encountered in residential neighborhoods, and that host use skewed towards eastern cottontail rabbits in poorer neighborhoods, and towards humans in wealthier areas. These results are paired with BG and human landing catch data to assess implications of socioeconomic status for potential transmission risk.