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Background  The ability of blood-feeding arthropods to successfully acquire and transmit pathogens of medical and veterinary importance has been shown to be interfered with, or enhanced by, the arthropod’s native microbiome. Mosquitoes transmit viruses, protozoan and filarial nematodes, the majority of which contribute to the 17% of infectious disease cases worldwide.  Dirofilaria immitis , a mosquito-transmitted filarial nematodes of dogs and cats, is vectored by several mosquito species including  Aedes aegypti .    Methods  In this study, we investigated the impact of  D. immitis  colonization on the microbiome of laboratory reared female  Ae. aegypti . Metagenomic analysis of the V3–V4 variable region of the microbial  16S  RNA gene was used for identification of the microbial differences down to species level.    Results  We generated a total of 1068 OTUs representing 16 phyla, 181 genera and 271 bacterial species. Overall, in order of abundance, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria and Firmicutes were the most represented phylum with  D. immitis- infected mosquitoes having more of Proteobacteria (71%) than uninfected mosquitoes (56.9%). An interesting finding in this study is the detection of  Klebsiella oxytoca  in relatively similar abundance in infected and uninfected mosquitoes, suggesting a possible endosymbiotic relationship, and has been previously shown to indirectly compete for nutrients with fungi on domestic housefly eggs and larvae. While  D. immitis  colonization has no effect on the overall species richness, we identified significant differences in the composition of selected bacterial genera and phyla between the two groups. We also reported distinct compositional and phylogenetic differences in the individual bacterial species when commonly identified bacteria were compared.    Conclusions  To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to understand the impact of a filarial infection on the microbiome of its mosquito vector. Further studies are required to identify bacteria species that could play an important role in the mosquito biology. While the microbiome composition of  Ae. aegypti  mosquito have been previously reported, our study shows that in an effort to establish itself, a filarial nematode modifies and alters the overall microbial diversity within its mosquito host.

Laboratory colonization by Dirofilaria immitis alters the microbiome of female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes