Aedes Anphevirus: an Insect-Specific Virus Distributed Worldwide in Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes That Has Complex Interplays with Wolbachia and Dengue Virus Infection in Cells

The mosquitoAedes aegypti transmits a number of arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses), such as dengue virus and Zika virus. Mosquitoes also harbor insect-specific viruses that may affect replication of pathogenic arboviruses in their body. Currently, however, there are only a few insect-specific viruses described fromA. aegypti in the literature. Here, we characterize a novel negative-strand virus, AeAV. Meta-analysis ofA. aegypti samples showed that it is present inA. aegypti mosquitoes worldwide and is vertically transmitted.Wolbachia -transinfected mosquitoes are currently being used in biocontrol, as they effectively block transmission of several positive-sense RNA viruses in mosquitoes. Our results demonstrate thatWolbachia enhances the replication of AeAV and modestly reduces dengue virus replication in a cell line model. This study expands our understanding of the virome inA. aegypti as well as providing insight into the complexity of theWolbachia virus restriction phenotype.