Correspondence to Adil Bashir
(shah.adil333@gmailcom)
Abstract: Wolbachia are a group of intracellular
bacteria known to be prevalent among arthropods. Wolbachia
infection cause declines of host populations, and also gives rise to
host resistance to a wide range of pathogens. Over the past few
decades, Wolbachia is used as a biological tool to control
mosquito vectors.
The study was aimed to identify Wolbachia strains in field
collected St. albopicta from different breeding sites in Kerala.
A total of 105 Samples were collected from 3 different areas with
different breeding sites, areca nut planation in Kasaragod (North
Kerala), rubber and pineapple plantation in Kottayam (Central Kerala)
and tyres and containers in Thiruvananthapuram (South Kerala).
The positive samples showing clear intensity were selected from general
as well as strain specific samples for sequencing. The samples prior to
sending for sequencing was extracted and purified using gel extraction
kit and lyophilized. The sequences were aligned using ClustalW software.
Then further phylogenetic analysis were made using MEGA 5 software.
The positive samples were found to have 95% A(wAlbA ) and
B(wAlbB) super infection with 5% and 3% single infection ofwAlbA and wAlbB strains respectively.
Key Words : Wolbaichia strains, Stegomyia albopicta ,
Dengue, Chikungunya, Rubber plantations, Kerala.