Figure 2. Tsp_PR fungus significantly increases DENV infection in Aedes mosquito midguts.
Aedes mosquitoes were mock-fed or fed for 48 hr with 10% sucrose solution containing 1 × 109 Tsp_PR spores. After spore feeding, (A) Fungus colonization in whole mosquitoes or (B) midguts. The presence of Tsp_PR in the mosquito was monitored for 25 days after introduction by enumerating fungal CFUs on Sabouraud agar with antibiotics cocktail from three independent experiments, the line indicates the mean and bars the maximum and minimum ranges. (C) Survival assays. Female mosquitoes fed with Tsp_PR spores or unfed were monitored in a daily basis for 38 days in three independent experiments (N = 80, p=0.3073). Error bars represent ± SE. (D) Rockefeller strain mosquitoes, (Control, N = 123; Tsp_PR, N = 120) or (E) Orlando strain mosquitoes (Control, N = 113; Tsp_PR, N = 99) were infected with a blood meal containing DENV; at 7 days post-infection (dpi), the midguts were dissected. Each dot represents a plaque-forming unit (PFU) transformed to log10 in individual midguts from three independent experiments. The line indicates the mean. Upper right boxes show the prevalence of infected mosquitoes, error bars represent the 95% confidence interval. *p<0.05, ***p<0.001,.