Detection and Characterization of Spiroplasma and Wolbachia in a Natural Population of Glossina Tachinoides

EasyChair Preprint no. 4706

Abstract

Blood feeding tsetse flies (Diptera: Glossinidae) are among the most harmful insects in tropical sub-Saharan Africa as they are vectors for trypanosome parasites which can cause the Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT) or sleeping sickness in humans and Animal African Trypanosomiasis (AAT) or nagana in livestock. These insects are considered a critical boundary for the economic development of African countries. Sustainable management of their populations can be achieved through the application of environmentally friendly techniques for vector control such as the sterile or incompatible insect techniques. Both are considered increasingly important components of area wide integrated pest management programs for certain key insect pest species. Reproductive parasites like Spiroplasma and Wolbachia, are endosymbiotic bacteria capable of inducing reproductive alterations to their insect-hosts, and they can be used as central components in such techniques. In this study, we investigated the presence of Spiroplasma and Wolbachia in a wild population of Glossina tachinoides from Burkina Faso with a 16S rRNA gene PCR approach. As a result, we found that approximately 50% of the population examined was infected with Spiroplasma, whereas Wolbachia was totally absent from our samples. Moreover, molecular genotyping was carried out through the MLST characterization of the Spiroplasma strain found in G. tachinoides. These findings provide useful information for enhancing the application of the previously mentioned techniques for controlling this devastating insect species.

Keyphrases: 16S rRNA, Glossina tachinoides, Incompatible Insect Technique (IIT), MLST, Sterile Insect Technique(SIT)

@Booklet{EasyChair:4706,
  author = {Sokaina El Khamlichi and Amal Maurady and Elias Asimakis and Panagiota Stathopoulou and Abdelfettah Sedqui and George Tsiamis},
  title = {Detection and Characterization of Spiroplasma and Wolbachia in a Natural Population of Glossina Tachinoides},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint no. 4706},

  year = {EasyChair, 2020}}