Detection and phylogenetic affiliation of Wolbachia sp. from Indian mosquitoes Culex quinquefasciatus and Aedes albopictus

Wolbachia sp. specific, 900 bp, 16S rRNA and, 650 bp, wsp genes were PCR amplified from two mosquito species Culex quinquefasciatus (strain NCCS and NIV) and Aedes albopictus. On the 16S rRNA based sequence analysis, Wolbachia sp. from Cx. quinquefasiatus resembled the earlier reported Wolbachia sp. from Cx. pipiens and related species from B super group whereas that of Wolbachia sp. from Ae. albopictus showed homology with members of A super group. The wsp gene sequence phylogeny correlated with the 16S rRNA data with Wolbachia sp. from Cx. quinquefasciatus resembling the B group with highest homology to Cx. pipiens and related species whereas that of Wolbachia sp. from Ae. albopictus was highly homologous to the wAlb A strain. The nucleotide differences between the earlier reported wAlbA and Wolbachia sp. (wAlb A*) studied from Ae. albopictus in this work were so significant that it formed a separate lineage in the A group of phylogenetic tree. These results indicated that Wolbachia sp. from Cx. quinquefasciatus were similar to previously reported species while Wolbachia sp. from Ae. albopictus would represent a novel strain of Wolbachia sp.