Bacterial communities associated with the midgut microbiota of wild Anopheles gambiae complex in Burkina Faso

Plasmodium falciparum is transmitted by mosquitoes from the Anopheles gambiae sensu lato (s.l) species complex and is responsible for severe forms of malaria. The composition of the mosquitoes’ microbiota plays a role in P. falciparum transmission, so we studied midgut bacterial communities of An. gambiae s.l from Burkina Faso. DNA was extracted from 17pools of midgut of mosquitoes from the Anopheles gambiae complex from six localities in three climatic areas, including cotton-growing and cotton-free localities to include potential diferences in insecticide selection pressure. The v3–v4 region of the 16S rRNA gene was targeted and sequenced using Illumina Miseq (2×250 nt). Diversity analysis was performed using QIIME and R software programs. The major bacterial phylum was Proteobacteria (97.2%) in all samples. The most abundant genera were Enterobacter (32.8%) and Aeromonas (29.8%), followed by Pseudomonas (11.8%), Acinetobacter (5.9%) and Thorsellia (2.2%). No statistical diference in operational taxonomic units (OTUs) was found (Kruskal–Wallis FDR—p>0.05) among the diferent areas, felds or localities. Richness and diversity indexes (observed OTUs, Chao1, Simpson and Shannon indexes) showed signifcant diferences in the cotton-growing felds and in the agroclimatic zones, mainly in the Sudano-Sahelian area. OTUs from seven bacterial species that mediate refractoriness to Plasmodium infection in An. gambiae s.l were detected. The beta diversity analysis did not show any signifcant diference. Therefore, a same control strategy of using bacterial species refractoriness to Plasmodium to target mosquito midgut bacterial community and afect their ftness in malaria transmission may be valuable tool for future malaria control eforts in Burkina Faso.