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.