Project Summary
Mosquito-borne diseases are expanding rapidly across the globe. Recent outbreaks of West
Nile, dengue, chikungunya and Zika viruses have sickened hundreds of millions of people, while
parasites such as malaria kill over 400,000 annually. The spread of competent vectors and their
pathogens to new continents and climates, coupled with the recent rapid global expansion of
other novel RNA viruses that infect humans, emphasizes the need for rapid and reliable
pathogen surveillance techniques now more than ever. Early detection ensures that vector
control efforts are directed to the right location at the right time to avert a potential epidemic.
Surveillance and detection of infected mosquitoes is often an early predictor of impending
human infection however comes with challenges, including the time involved to sort, identify and
extract RNA from large numbers of mosquitoes while maintaining a cold chain. This requires
that mosquito surveillance, identification, and pooling precede virus testing. It has recently been
shown that mosquitoes with a disseminated infection excrete (as excreta/feces) arbovirus and
parasites in concentrations suitable for detection when sampled in the lab. This allows for rapid
and non-destructive sampling and pathogen testing, however current field trapping devices are
unable to efficiently collect the randomly distributed ca. 1.5 µL excreta droplets. To address this
issue, we propose here to design two novel excreta-collecting mosquito traps for host-seeking
and ovipositing (or gravid) mosquitoes, respectively, that utilize sugar feeding stations and a
custom fabricated collection system composed of a nanostructured superhydrophobic surface to
funnel and condense the excreta sample. An appropriate hydrophobic surface conformation will
first be selected and tested for efficacy during initial field trials. This prototype will then be scaled
up and configured to trap wild mosquito populations while channeling and aggregating excreta
produced within the trap to a standard microcentrifuge tube attached externally for quick and
easy collection. To test the ability of both devices to effectively sample potential pathogens from
trapped mosquitoes, the traps will be deployed across five New Jersey counties spanning a
multitude of mosquito habitat in collaboration with county mosquito control agencies. The
captured excreta will be subject to metavirome sequencing to identify and assemble genome
data from the full breadth of both known and potentially novel RNA viruses in the samples,
representing a broad diversity of New Jersey mosquitoes. This project represents a foundational
step towards sentinel “mosquito free” surveillance of vector-borne pathogens that will facilitate
rapid response to mitigate enzootic outbreaks before they occur.