Zika virus outbreak in the Americas: Is Aedes albopictus an overlooked culprit?

Azeem Mehmood Butt; Izza Nasrullah; Raheel Qamar; Yigang Tong

Presently, the major bottleneck that restricts complete understanding of ongoing outbreak is lack . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license is made available under a The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. It . https://doi.org/10.1101/044594 doi: bioRxiv preprint of availability of ZIKV full genome sequences. It is not known yet how ZIKV responds and manages within multiple vectors which are although member of same species but still demonstrates differences in certain aspects of genetic and environmental preferences. Currently, there is no reported genome sequence of ZIKV isolated from Ae. aegypti or Ae. albopictus populations of the affected areas. So, at this stage it is unclear if anyone or both types of Aedes are also actually harboring similar ZIKV strains as that of reported from the outbreak regions. By looking at previously reported ZIKV strains, there is only a single strain that was isolated from Ae. aegypti in 1966 (GenBank ID: HQ234499). Although, this strain clusters within Asian genotype group, by looking at correspondence analysis plots, it is clear that this strain contains several differences at individual gene levels from the rest of Asian strains (Figure 2) . Whether these genome level differences are host specific warrants further investigations. In current scenario, host-vector-virus triangle highlights an important matter of concern towards reevaluating the current surveillance, eradication and preventative strategies for ZIKV which for now appear to be largely focused on A. aegypti only.