Comprehensive characterization of ancestral populations of the vector Aedes aegypti on Indian Ocean islands

项目摘要/摘要 我们最近发现，撒哈拉以南非洲的所有埃及伊蚊种群的祖先也是如此 正如世界各地目前居住在包括马达加斯加在内的西南印度洋的岛屿上一样。 这些岛屿形成了非洲大陆Ae。台湾埃及伊蚊不早于大约10万年前。 我们建议对Ae的SWIO种群进行多学科研究。埃及伊蚊和它的近亲Ae. Mascarens和Ae.皮亚。这将包括种群遗传学、系统发生学/系统地理学、媒介 能力，血餐分析，和现场捕捉的雌性病毒的特征。我们致力于 像这样的问题：Ae的祖先是谁？埃及伊蚊Aegypti S.S.能够传播相同的病毒 会导致人类疾病吗？这些蚊子在野外携带相同的病毒吗？和/或 港湾新奇未知虫媒病毒？他们的血餐来源是什么？它们在哪里繁殖？ 种群遗传学和系统发育初步工作已经确定了新的未描述的候选 物种，我们怀疑将会发现更多神秘的分类群。我们建议组装完整的基因组，用于 大多数信息量最大的种群/分类群，将允许进行比较研究和祖先推断 Ae.基因组。埃及埃及人，是分析正在进行的大量基因组研究的基本资源 世界各地的实验室。

Project Summary/Abstract We have recently shown that the ancestors of all Aedes aegypti populations in both sub-Saharan Africa as well as around the world presently reside on islands in the Southwest Indian Ocean (SWIO) including Madagascar. These islands gave rise to continental African Ae. aegypti formosus no earlier than about 100,000 years ago. We propose multidisciplinary studies on SWIO populations of Ae. aegypti along with its close relatives, Ae. mascarensis and Ae. pia. This will include population genetics, phylogenetics/phylogeography, vector competence, blood meal analyses, and characterization of the virome of field-caught females. We address question such as: Are the ancestors that gave rise to Ae. aegypti s.s. capable of transmitting the same viruses that cause human diseases? Are these mosquitoes carrying the same viruses in the field and/or do they harbor novel undescribed arboviruses? What are the sources of their blood meals? Where do they breed? Population genetics and phylogenetic preliminary work have already identified candidates for new undescribed species and we suspect more cryptic taxa will be found. We propose to assemble complete genomes for the most informative populations/taxa that will allow comparative studies as well as inference of the ancestral genome of Ae. aegypti s.s., a fundamental resource for analysis of a plethora of genomics studies ongoing in laboratories around the world.