TY - JOUR
T1 - Xenosurveillance reflects traditional sampling techniques for the identification of human pathogens
T2 - A comparative study in West Africa
AU - Fauver, Joseph R.
AU - Weger-Lucarelli, James
AU - Fakoli, Lawrence S.
AU - Bolay, Kpehe
AU - Bolay, Fatorma K.
AU - Diclaro, Joseph W.
AU - Brackney, Doug E.
AU - Foy, Brian D.
AU - Stenglein, Mark D.
AU - Ebel, Gregory D.
N1 - Funding Information:
The projected was supported in part by the CSU Infectious Disease Supercluster Grant “Xenosurveillance: A novel approach for interrogating the human-pathogen landscape in sub-Saharan Africa” awarded to DEB, BDF, and GDE. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The authors would like to thank collaborators at the Liberian Institute of Biomedical Research, specifically Andrew Saah, Bendu, Edwin, and public health officials of Lofa County. As well, we would like to thank the many people in northern Liberia that participated in our study.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Public Library of Science. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2018/3/21
Y1 - 2018/3/21
N2 - Background: Novel surveillance strategies are needed to detect the rapid and continuous emergence of infectious disease agents. Ideally, new sampling strategies should be simple to implement, technologically uncomplicated, and applicable to areas where emergence events are known to occur. To this end, xenosurveillance is a technique that makes use of blood collected by hematophagous arthropods to monitor and identify vertebrate pathogens. Mosquitoes are largely ubiquitous animals that often exist in sizable populations. As well, many domestic or peridomestic species of mosquitoes will preferentially take blood-meals from humans, making them a unique and largely untapped reservoir to collect human blood. Methodology/Principal findings: We sought to take advantage of this phenomenon by systematically collecting blood-fed mosquitoes during a field trail in Northern Liberia to determine whether pathogen sequences from blood engorged mosquitoes accurately mirror those obtained directly from humans. Specifically, blood was collected from humans via finger-stick and by aspirating bloodfed mosquitoes from the inside of houses. Shotgun metagenomic sequencing of RNA and DNA derived from these specimens was performed to detect pathogen sequences. Samples obtained from xenosurveillance and from finger-stick blood collection produced a similar number and quality of reads aligning to two human viruses, GB virus C and hepatitis B virus. Conclusions/Significance: This study represents the first systematic comparison between xenosurveillance and more traditional sampling methodologies, while also demonstrating the viability of xenosurveillance as a tool to sample human blood for circulating pathogens.
AB - Background: Novel surveillance strategies are needed to detect the rapid and continuous emergence of infectious disease agents. Ideally, new sampling strategies should be simple to implement, technologically uncomplicated, and applicable to areas where emergence events are known to occur. To this end, xenosurveillance is a technique that makes use of blood collected by hematophagous arthropods to monitor and identify vertebrate pathogens. Mosquitoes are largely ubiquitous animals that often exist in sizable populations. As well, many domestic or peridomestic species of mosquitoes will preferentially take blood-meals from humans, making them a unique and largely untapped reservoir to collect human blood. Methodology/Principal findings: We sought to take advantage of this phenomenon by systematically collecting blood-fed mosquitoes during a field trail in Northern Liberia to determine whether pathogen sequences from blood engorged mosquitoes accurately mirror those obtained directly from humans. Specifically, blood was collected from humans via finger-stick and by aspirating bloodfed mosquitoes from the inside of houses. Shotgun metagenomic sequencing of RNA and DNA derived from these specimens was performed to detect pathogen sequences. Samples obtained from xenosurveillance and from finger-stick blood collection produced a similar number and quality of reads aligning to two human viruses, GB virus C and hepatitis B virus. Conclusions/Significance: This study represents the first systematic comparison between xenosurveillance and more traditional sampling methodologies, while also demonstrating the viability of xenosurveillance as a tool to sample human blood for circulating pathogens.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pntd.0006348
DO - 10.1371/journal.pntd.0006348
M3 - Article
C2 - 29561834
AN - SCOPUS:85045119267
SN - 1935-2727
VL - 12
JO - PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases
JF - PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases
IS - 3
M1 - e0006348
ER -