Question

"Insects in the family Culicidae, commonly called mosquitos, are not just annoying arthropod pests. These blood-sucking insects are major vectors for the spread of infectious diseases, including a leading worldwide killer, malaria, dengue, and birth defects caused by the newly emerging Zika virus. The importance of such vectors and their diseases is indicated by the fact that epidemiologists have given a special name to viruses spread by arthropods, the arboviruses, and their disease are arboviral diseases

"Microbiologists have discovered a genus of bacteria, Wolbachia, that is an obligate intracellular parasite in arthropods, including mosquitos. These bacteria take control over their hosts. Recent research has shown that certain strains of Wolbachia can reduce the ability of Aedes aegypti mosquitos to carry and transmit dengue virus. Since the bacteria can spread between mosquitos, some scientists have proposed releasing Wolbachia-infected insects into the wild to spread Wolbachia, which would spread throughout the mosquitoes and prevent the spread of dengue. "

Imagine you are on a scientific team at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) charged with reviewing an application to release mosquitos infected with genetically engineered Wolbachia to prevent the spread of Zika in the United States.

1. Would you approve this application?

2. What additional information is required to make an informed decision?

Write a detailed response to the prompt above.

Answer 1

Wolbachia as a gram negative bacteria has been discovered to reduce the ability of the mosquitoes to carry harmful pathogens causing malaria, dengue or Zika vius infection by shortening the life span of the pathogens inside the mosquito. The bacteria are mainly found to infect arthropods by taking control over the host immune systems. Some of the off arthrophods that are infected include, spiders, mites and nematodes.

In the nematodes causing filariasis in humans infected with wolbachia, these are resposible for the host immune response. Hnece, a person infected with such nematode having Wolbachia can be treated with antibacterial doxycycline that will remove the Wolbachia and nematode would not be abe to survive from the person's immune response.

Hence, I will approve the application regarding the release of geneticaly engineered Wolbachia infected mosquitoes into te wild, as it will reduce the rate of life threatening infections in humans including, malaria, dengue and so on.

Though there are many advantages of releasing the genetically bacteria into the wild, there is certain additional information that has to be known:

• Genomic information of the strain of Wolbachia used, in order to avoid any life threatning risks that may be caused by the bacteria itself.
• The bacteria that is manipulated using genetical engineering must not contain any genes that would lead to some unknown protein that itself can cause infection in humans.
• Information based on the Mutation rates in the bacteria , to identify and assess the stable, conserved regions of the genome.
• Such procedures must be conducted in a region with lesser human population, and the results are to be analyzed.
• In addition, to all the above, we must know the arrangements to be made for having a peridocal observation (say, once in a decade) to check for any other mutations undergone by the Wolbachia that may have evolved, by Horizontal gene transfer during the course of time.