Metabolic Processes Are Differentially Regulated During Wild-Type and Attenuated Dengue Virus Infection in Aedes Aegypti

Successful completion of the dengue virus (DENV) life cycle in its mosquito vectors is important for efficient human-mosquito-human cycle of transmission, but the virus-mosquito interactions that underpin this critical event are poorly defined. To understand the virus-host interactions that determine viral infection by Aedes aegypti, the principal DENV vector, the authors compared transcriptomic changes in the head/thorax of the mosquito after intrathoracic infection with the wild-type DENV2 16681 strain and its attenuated derivative, PDK53. Using high-throughput RNA-sequencing, the authors identified 1,629 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) during 16681 infection, compared with only 22 DEGs identified during PDK53 infection, indicating that 16681 infection triggers a more robust host transcriptomic response compared with PDK53 infection. The authors further found that 16681 infection, but not PDK53 infection, altered metabolism in these heads/thoraces. Altogether, our findings reveal differential regulation of metabolic processes during wild-type and attenuated DENV infection, and suggest the need for future work to study the role of metabolic processes in determining DENV infection and replication in its mosquito vectors.