Direct nucleic acid analysis of mosquitoes for high fidelity species identification and detection of Wolbachia using a cellphone

Sanchita Bhadra; Timothy E. Riedel; Miguel A. Saldaña; Shivanand Hegde; Nicole Pederson; Grant L. Hughes; Andrew D. Ellington

[39], and the same dual wsp assay could be rendered strain-specific by simply substituting an 451 OSD reporter specific to an alternate polymorphic loop sequence (S3 Fig) . By using our one-pot LAMP-OSD assay, macerated mosquito homogenates could be directly 455 analyzed and 'yes/no' visual readouts could be quickly ascertained with a cell phone in the field 456 without the requirement for laboratory equipment or technically training. Moreover, since our 457 assays can accurately analyze mosquitoes several days after capturethe coi LAMP-OSD assay 458 could for example identify mosquitoes after 3 weeks at 37 °C without desiccantmosquitoes from 459 remote collection outposts can potentially be analyzed even after delayed retrieval. The flexibility 460 of assay timing is further accommodated by the fact that lyophilized LAMP-OSD reaction mixes 461 that can be stored and deployed without cold chain [42] . These combined features make our 462 assay platform the best tool to date for expanding vector surveillance to resource poor settings 463