Genetic Polymorphism Study on<i>Aedes albopictus</i>of Different Geographical Regions Based on DNA Barcoding

Abstract

<i>Aedes albopictus</i> is a very important vector for pathogens of many infectious diseases including dengue fever. In this study, we explored the genetic polymorphism of <i>Aedes albopictus</i> strains in different geographical regions using DNA barcoding of mitochondrial COI (<i>MT-COI</i>) gene. We collected <i>MT-COI</i> sequence of 106 <i>Aedes albopictus</i> mosquitos from 6 provinces in China including Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan, Yunnan, and Taiwan. The length of the sequences is 709bp with the content of A+T (67.7%) greater than that of G+C (32.3%). We identified mutations in 90 (13.68%) loci, of which 57 (63.33%) are transitions, 28 (31.11%) are transversions, and 5 (5.56%) are hypervariable loci. In addition, we obtained 42 haplotypes, 4 (9.52%) of which are shared among different populations. The haplotype diversity of <i>Aedes albopictus</i> is 0.882 and nucleotide diversity is 0.01017. Moreover, the pedigree network diagram shows that most haplotypes are under parallel evolution, suggesting a local expansion of <i>Aedes albopictus</i> in history. Finally, the Neighbor-Joining tree of <i>MT-COI</i> haplotypes reveals a certain correlation between haplotype clusters and geographical distribution, and there are differences among <i>Aedes albopictus</i> in different geographical regions. In conclusion, DNA barcoding of <i>MT-COI</i> gene is an effective method to study the genetic structure of <i>Aedes albopictus</i>.