Abstract
ABSTRACT
Malaria remains a significant global health challenge with 263 million cases in 2023.
Anopheles
insecticide resistance threatens current vector control methods, and novel strategies are crucial to combat malaria transmission.
Wolbachia
, an endosymbiotic bacteria that can invade mosquito populations and inhibit pathogen replication, has only recently been shown as a high‐density symbiont in two wild
Anopheles
species. Detection of
Wolbachia
in symbiosis with
Anopheles
mosquitoes has relied on PCR amplification of
Wolbachia
genes and/or Sanger and Illumina sequencing. This study assesses Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT) to detect
Wolbachia
, which could facilitate screening for symbiosis with wild
Anopheles
mosquitoes in endemic settings. We used 46 samples; 10 were pooled for a single MinION flow cell run and the rest processed individually using Flongle flow cells, comparing three mosquito species with three kit combinations. Using the ONT Field sequencing kit, there were 13X more
Wolbachia
reads in
An. demeilloni
(genuine symbiosis) than
An. gambiae
(no evidence of
Wolbachia
). The ONT 16S barcoding kit and Rapid barcoding kit were then assessed using more economical Flongle flow cells.
Wolbachia
was successfully identified in
An
.
demeilloni
and
An. moucheti
but not in
An. gambiae
. This study demonstrates the feasibility of ONT for field‐based detection of
Wolbachia
.