Materials and methods
This investigation was carried out in Kerala, India in 3 areas, Thiruvananthapuram, Kottayam and Kasaragod. The sites were selected according to different nature of breeding habitats of St. albopicta in these areas. Also these sites were distributed to South Kerala, central Kerala and North Kerala. All these study sites were affected by arboviral diseases. St. albopicta was found to be abundant in all the study sites.
In the present study, field collected St . albopicta from different parts of the Kerala with distinct breeding sites were subjected to PCR amplification of the Wolbachia Surface protein(WSP) gene to determine the prevalence of this intracellular bacteria and further amplified using strain specific primers to confirm the strain. Also, selected amplified sequences were then be subjected to phylogenetic analysis.