Project:

M.O.S.Q.U.I.T.O. Microbiome Observations Specific to Questioning and Understanding Illness Transmitting Organisms

Students:

Jack Magee, Aidan Pecorale

School:

West Islip High School, Suffolk

Mentors:

Mary Kroll

Abstract:

Mosquitoes are responsible for the transmission of illnesses which plague mankind every year. Within these vectors lie bacteria, both harmful and beneficial, that vary in identity and abundance, making up what is called a microbiome (Weiss & Aksoy, 2011). The impact of these microbiomes on the ability of mosquitoes to transmit diseases has become of interest to the scientific community as this relationship may be crucial to combating disease. To investigate this relationship locally, the microbiomes of Aedes albopictus and Culex sp. mosquitoes were mapped using Illumina sequencing and Jupyter Notebook programming. Furthermore, to test for a correlation between mosquito species and particular bacteria presence, statistical tests were conducted. These tests involved comparing the bacteria identified in Aedes albopictus, a species hardly ever reported to carry West Nile virus (WNV), to the bacteria identified in Culex sp., which are frequently reported carriers of WNV (“SCDOH”, 2016).

Poster:

Team samples: