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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Newly discovered mosquito viruses help control vector-borne viral diseases

Roy A Hall A and Jody Hobson-Peters B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre
School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences
The University of Queensland
St Lucia, Qld 4072, Australia
Email: roy.hall@uq.edu.au

B Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre
School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences
The University of Queensland
St Lucia, Qld 4072, Australia
Email: j.peters2@uq.edu.au

Microbiology Australia 39(2) 72-75 https://doi.org/10.1071/MA18020
Published: 13 April 2018

Abstract

Many well-known mosquito-borne viruses such as dengue, Zika, West Nile, chikungunya and Ross River viruses can be transmitted to vertebrates and are associated with disease in man or animals. However, the use of deep sequencing and other open-minded approaches to detect viruses in mosquitoes have uncovered many new RNA viruses, most of which do not infect vertebrates. The discovery of these ‘insect-specific' viruses (ISVs) has redefined the mosquito virome and prompted the lines of viral taxonomic classification to be redrawn1,2. Despite their benign phenotype, ISVs have become a hot topic of research, with recent studies indicating they have significant application for biotechnology.


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