Determination of the Phylogenetic Relationship of Four Strains of the Yellow Fever Mosquito Aedes Aegypti

Aedes Aegypti is the primary vector for arboviruses like dengue and yellow fever. This mosquito species originated in Africa but is now found in most tropical and subtropical parts of the world. The goal of this project was to determine the phylogenetic relationship among three different laboratory strains and the local Las Cruces strain of Ae. Aegypti. To determine the differences among the strains, three gene fragment were PCR amplified from each strain of mosquito and analyzed. We used a 500bp fragment of an intron of the cytochrome C gene,  a 600bp fragment of the coding sequence of FOXO, and a 500bp fragment of a gene homologous to Drosophila called frizzled. PCR fragments were cloned in pCRII-TOPO and sequenced from both ends. Based on the DNA-sequencing data, a phylogenic tree was constructed using the Neighbor-Joining method.  Supported by PHS grant no. R25 GM048998-13.