PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Rutkowski, Natalie N.
AU  - Dong, Yuemei
AU  - Dimopoulos, George
TI  - Field-deployable molecular diagnostic platform for arbovirus and <em>Wolbachia</em> detection in <em>Aedes aegypti</em>
AID  - 10.1101/2020.04.28.066514
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.04.28.066514
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/05/01/2020.04.28.066514.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/05/01/2020.04.28.066514.full
AB  - Background Surveillance of mosquito infection status is critical for planning and deployment of proper mosquito control initiatives. Concurrently, Wolbachia is being widely used as a control method for arboviral transmission. Point-of-care (POC) detection assays are necessary for monitoring the infection prevalence and geographic range of viruses as well as Wolbachia in mosquito vector populations. We therefore assessed the novel qPCR bCUBE molecular diagnostic system as a tool for virus and Wolbachia detection.Results We developed a reliable, specific, and sensitive diagnostic assay for detecting Zika virus and dengue virus serotype 2 using the real-time qPCR platform bCUBE. With bCUBE-based qRT-PCR, both Wolbachia bacterium and virus RNA could be reliably detected in individually infected Ae. aegypti mosquitoes and in pools of 5, 10, or 15 mosquitoes.Conclusions The portable qPCR bCUBE diagnostic platform is capable of detecting Zika and dengue virus as well as Wolbachia in mosquitoes and therefore has potential as a practical field-deployable diagnostic test for vector-borne disease surveillance programs.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.