Biology subjects

Wardeh, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Wardeh, M..

6 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Evaluating the Role of Anopheles Mosquitoes in the Global Spread of Arboviruses: A Review of Laboratory-Confirmed Viral Competence

Mosquito-borne diseases are a major global health concern, infecting up to 700 million people annually and causing over one million deaths. Of the several genera of biting mosquito, species of Anopheles are mostly studied for their ability (vector competence) to transmit Plasmodium protozoan parasites, some species of which cause malaria. More than 480 species of Anopheles have been described worldwide and about 70 of these are responsible for Plasmodium spp. transmission. However, the focus on Anopheles as vectors of Plasmodium has led to a relative lack of study about the ability of Anopheles to transmit viruses. Some Anopheles species have been experimentally confirmed as competentfor various arboviruses. In most cases they are secondary vectors, with relatively low competence, contributing to overall transmission while other species of mosquito or other vector are responsible for sustained transmission. Although secondary vectors may contribute less to transmission, they may play important epidemiological roles by extending transmission seasons and/or providing a means of virus overwintering. Here, we conducted an extensive review of scientific repositories, accessing a diverse range of journals and reports to build an exhaustive database of known Anopheles competence for arboviruses. Opinion pieces, modelling papers lacking experimental confirmation, and papers without vector competence data were excluded. In total, we reviewed 7,343 papers, and after exclusions, we retained 427 papers. We analysed these data, cross-referenced with ability to undergo diapause and geographical range. Our results show that some Anopheles spp. have the potential to be secondary vectors of some arboviruses, as well as undergoing diapause as adults in temperate regions of their range. Hence, we infer they could also play an epidemiologically significant role in the overwintering of mosquito-borne viruses. Author SummaryMosquito-borne diseases remain a major global health challenge, causing over one million deaths annually. Though Anopheles mosquitoes are widely studied for their spread of parasites that cause malaria, much less is known about their interaction with viruses. In this study we reviewed scientific articles to identify their role in the spread of mosquito-borne viruses. We examined studies that showed experimental evidence of transmission in the laboratory, and thus could potentially contribute to transmission as secondary vectors. Additionally, some Anopheles species in temperate regions can survive winter in a dormant state (diapause) as adults, which could enable viruses to persist between transmission seasons. Together, these results suggest that Anopheles mosquitoes may play a larger role in virus transmission than is currently appreciated, especially in temperate regions.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2024

Meta-analyses of Culex blood-meals indicates strong regional effect on feeding patterns

Understanding host utilization by mosquito vectors is essential to assess the risk of vector-borne diseases. Many studies have investigated the feeding patterns of Culex mosquitoes by molecular analysis of blood-meals from field collected mosquitoes. However, these individual small-scale studies only provide a limited understanding of the complex host-vector interactions when considered in isolation. Here, we analyse the Culex blood-feeding data from 90 publications over the last 15 years to give a global insight into the feeding patterns of Culex mosquitoes, with particular reference to vectors of currently emerging Culex-borne viruses such as West Nile and Usutu. Data on 26,857 blood-meals from 71 different Culex species were extracted from published literature. The percentage of blood-meals on amphibian, avian, human, non-human mammalian, and reptilian hosts was determined for each Culex species. Our analysis showed that feeding patterns were not significantly explained by mosquito species-level phylogeny, indicating that external factors play an important role in determining mosquito feeding patterns. For Cx. quinquefasciatus, Cx. pipiens complex, and Cx. tritaeniorhynchus, feeding patterns were compared across the worlds seven biogeographical realms. Culex tritaeniorhynchus, Cx. pipiens complex and Cx. quinquefasciatus all had significantly varied feeding patterns between realms. These results demonstrate that feeding patterns of Culex mosquitoes vary between species but can also vary between geographically distinct populations of the same species, indicating that regional or population-level adaptations are major drivers of host utilization. Ultimately, these findings support the surveillance of vector-borne diseases by specifying which host groups are most likely to be at risk. Author summaryBeing aware of mosquito biting behaviour is essential to determine the threat of mosquito-borne diseases. Studying the feeding patterns of Culex mosquitoes is crucial as these mosquitoes are vectors of currently emerging or re-emerging arboviruses such as West Nile and Usutu. Feeding behaviour of Culex mosquitoes has been examined in many individual small-scale studies. These studies only focus on the feeding patterns in a specific area. To gain a more global understanding of these feeding patterns we analysed all available Culex blood-feeding data from the last 15 years. In summary, data on 26,857 blood-meals from 71 different Culex species was collected. For each species the percentage of blood-meals on different host groups was determined. We analysed the relationship between feeding patterns and mosquito phylogeny, which showed that phylogeny alone could not explain feeding patterns. These results indicate that external factors such as land use and climate could play an important role in determining feeding patterns. For further analysis we determined the feeding patterns for three important vector species, Cx. quinquefasciatus, Cx. pipiens complex, and Cx. tritaeniorhynchus in different biogeographical realms. All three species showed different feeding patterns in the included realms. Thus, the same species can have different feeding patterns in different regions, indicating the importance of local surveillance.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2023

Features that matter: evolutionary signatures that predict viral transmission routes

Routes of virus transmission between hosts are key to understanding viral epidemiology. Different routes have large effects on viral ecology, and likelihood and rate of transmission. For example, respiratory and vector-borne viruses together encompass the majority of high-consequence animal and plant outbreaks. However, the specific transmission route(s) can take months to years to determine, undermining the efficiency of mitigation efforts. Here, we identify the vial features and evolutionary signatures which are predictive of viral transmission routes, and use them to predict potential routes for fully-sequenced viruses - we perform this for both viruses with no observed routes, as well as viruses with missing routes. This was achieved by compiling a dataset of 24,953 virus-host associations with 81 defined transmission routes, constructing a hierarchy of virus transmission encompassing those routes and 42 higher-order modes, and engineering 446 predictive features from three complementary perspectives. We integrated those data and features, to train 98 independent ensembles of LightGBM classifiers, each incorporating five different class-balancing approaches. Using our trained ensembles, we demonstrated that all features contributed to the prediction for at least one of routes and/or modes of transmission, demonstrating the utility of our multi-perspective approach. Our approach achieved ROC-AUC=0.991, and F1-score=0.855 across all modelled transmission mechanisms; and was able to achieve high levels of predictive performance for high-consequence respiratory (ROC-AUC=0.990, and F1-score=0.864) and vector-borne transmission (ROC-AUC=0.997, and F1-score=0.921). Our framework ranks the viral features in order of their contribution to prediction, per transmission route, and hence identifies the genomic evolutionary signatures associated with each route. Together with the more matured field of viral host-range prediction, our predictive framework could: provide early insights into the potential for, and pattern of viral spread; facilitate rapid response with appropriate measures; and significantly triage the time-consuming investigations to confirm the likely routes of transmission. Moreover, the performance of our approach in high-consequence transmission routes showcases that our methodology has direct utility to pandemic preparedness. AUTHORS SUMMARYRoutes of virus transmission - the mechanism(s) by which a virus physically gets from an infected to an uninfected host, are crucial to understanding how viral diseases spread among animals and plants. Here, we uncover the evolutionary signatures which can predict the transmission routes a virus uses to move from one host to another, enabling us to identify any unobserved routes for known viruses and even predict potential routes of newly emerged viruses. We first compile a comprehensive dataset of virus-host associations. Leveraging this dataset, we employ a multi-perspective machine learning approach to achieve high predictive performance. Our framework ranks viral features by their significance in prediction, revealing genomic evolutionary signatures linked to each route. Our approach could provide early insights into viral spread patterns, facilitating prompt response efforts to new outbreaks and epidemics, and streamline laboratory investigations. Overall, our study represents a step forward in our ability to anticipate and mitigate the impact of emerging infectious diseases on human, animal, and plant health.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2022

Monkeypox virus shows potential to infect a diverse range of native animal species across Europe, indicating high risk of becoming endemic in the region

BackgroundMonkeypox is a zoonotic virus which persists in animal reservoirs and periodically spills over into humans, causing outbreaks. During the current 2022 outbreak, monkeypox virus has persisted via human-human transmission, across all major continents and for longer than any previous record. This unprecedented spread creates the potential for the virus to spillback into local susceptible animal populations. Persistent transmission amongst such animals raises the prospect of monkeypox virus becoming enzootic in new regions. However, the full and specific range of potential animal hosts and reservoirs of monkeypox remains unknown, especially in newly at-risk non-endemic areas. MethodsHere, utilising ensembles of classifiers comprising different class balancing techniques and incorporating instance weights, we identify which animal species are potentially susceptible to monkeypox virus. Subsequently, we generate spatial distribution maps to highlight high-risk geographic areas at high resolution. FindingsWe show that the number of potentially susceptible species is currently underestimated by 2.4 to 4.3-fold, and that a high density of wild susceptible species are native to Europe. We provide lists of these species, and highlight high-risk hosts for spillback and potential long-term reservoirs, which may enable monkeypox virus to become endemic. InterpretationWe highlight the European red fox and brown rat, as they have established interactions with potentially contaminated urban waste and sewage, which provides a mechanism for potential spillback. We anticipate that our results will enable targeted active surveillance of potential spillback event, to minimise risk of the virus becoming endemic in these regions. Our results also indicate the potential of domesticated cats and dogs (latter now confirmed) being susceptible to monkeypox virus, and hence support many health organisations advice for infected humans to avoid physical interaction with pets.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2020

Predicting mammalian hosts in which novel coronaviruses can be generated.

Novel pathogenic coronaviruses - including SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 - arise by homologous recombination in a host cell1,2. This process requires a single host to be infected with more than one type of coronavirus, which recombine to form novel strains of virus with unique combinations of genetic material. Identifying possible sources of novel coronaviruses requires identifying hosts (termed recombination hosts) of more than one coronavirus type, in which recombination might occur. However, the majority of coronavirus-host interactions remain unknown, and therefore the vast majority of recombination hosts for coronaviruses cannot be identified. Here we show that there are 11.5-fold more coronavirus-host associations, and over 30-fold more potential SARS-CoV-2 recombination hosts, than have been observed to date. We show there are over 40-fold more host species with four or more different subgenera of coronaviruses. This underestimation of both number and novel coronavirus generation in wild and domesticated animals. Our results list specific high-risk hosts in which our model predicts homologous recombination could occur, our model identifies both wild and domesticated mammals including known important and understudied species. We recommend these species for coronavirus surveillance, as well as enforced separation in livestock markets and agriculture.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2020

Divide and conquer: machine-learning integrates mammalian, viral, and network traits to predict unknown virus-mammal associations

Our knowledge of viral host ranges remains limited. Completing this picture by identifying unknown hosts of known viruses is an important research aim that can help identify zoonotic and animal-disease risks. Furthermore, such understanding can be used to mitigate against viral spill-over from animal reservoirs into human population. To address this knowledge-gap we apply a divide-and-conquer approach which separates viral, mammalian and network features into three unique perspectives, each predicting associations independently to enhance predictive power. Our approach predicts over 20,000 unknown associations between known viruses and mammalian hosts, suggesting that current knowledge underestimates the number of associations in wild and semi-domesticated mammals by a factor of 4.3, and the average mammalian host-range of viruses by a factor of 3.2. In particular, our results highlight a significant knowledge gap in the wild reservoirs of important zoonotic and domesticated mammals viruses: specifically, lyssaviruses, bornaviruses and rotaviruses.

ecology↗