The presence of the wAnD strain of Wolbachia is correlated with lower levels of Plasmodium sporozoites and a less diverse microbiome in wild Anopheles demeilloni mosquito cephalothoraxes
Seynabou Sougoufara, Janvier Bandibabone, Laura Chatterley, Isabel Hughes, Carolina Molina Taberes, Jade Ball, Thomas Palliaser, Vishaal Dhokiya, Eva Heinz, Grant Hughes, Thomas Walker · 2026
Read The presence of the wAnD strain of Wolbachia is correlated with lower levels of Plasmodium sporozoites and a less diverse microbiome in wild Anopheles demeilloni mosquito cephalothoraxes by Seynabou Sougoufara, Janvier Bandibabone, Laura Chatterley, Isabel Hughes, Carolina Molina Taberes, Jade Ball, Thomas Palliaser, Vishaal Dhokiya, Eva Heinz, Grant Hughes, Thomas Walker (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13248515.txt.
Description
Seynabou Sougoufara and co-authors test whether a natural bacterium inside wild malaria mosquitoes blunts the malaria parasite, in a 2026 study. The bacterium, a Wolbachia strain called wAnD, lives in Anopheles demeilloni caught in Congo's Sud Kivu region. Lab-made Wolbachia already curb viruses in other mosquitoes, but true wild partnerships in malaria carriers are rare. The team split caught females into belly and head-thorax parts and read each for the bacterium and the parasite.
The bacterium sat thicker in bellies than in head parts. Malaria's infective stage turned up only in head parts that lacked the bacterium. Bellies carrying the bacterium paired with lower parasite rates overall. Head-part germ mixes also shifted with the bacterium's presence, though overall variety shrank in carriers. The authors say the strain may block the parasite's road to the bite glands, and they urge tests of it as a malaria control tool.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Seynabou Sougoufara, Janvier Bandibabone, Laura Chatterley, Isabel Hughes, Carolina Molina Taberes, Jade Ball, Thomas Palliaser, Vishaal Dhokiya, Eva Heinz, Grant Hughes, Thomas Walker |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 39 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |