This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: When public health researchers want to know whether diseases such as COVID-19 or polio are circulating in a community, they can look for genetic evidence in wastewater. Entomologist Dana Price wondered whether the same principle could be applied to mosquitoes.
The question led to an unconventional experiment. "What we did, colloquially, was build a mosquito toilet," said Price, an associate professor at the Center for Vector Biology, Department of Entomology, in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and a lead author of a study published in Microbiology Spectrum. The device, Price said, is deceptively simple: a 3D-printed funnel coated with a superhydrophobic (water-repelling) material that causes liquid to bead up and slide into a collection tube.
The tiny traces of mosquito waste it captured revealed a hidden world. By sequencing genetic material in mosquito excrement, Price recovered a complete West Nile virus genome, found the first known evidence of a Hedwig-like virus in the Americas and detected several viruses that may be new to science. The approach also identified parasites and confirmed the mosquito species that deposited the waste droplets.
Findings from the study suggest mosquito waste could become a powerful surveillance tool, allowing scientists to search broadly for familiar pathogens as well as threats they don't yet know exist, Price said. "If you don't look for it, you won't find it," Price said. "But what if you don't know what to look for?" Mosquito surveillance historically involves collecting large numbers of insects, sorting them by species, combining them into pools and grinding them up for laboratory testing.
The labor-intensive process requires scientists to preserve the insects carefully so their genetic material doesn't degrade. During an outbreak, those steps can delay information needed to direct mosquito-control efforts. Conventional tests also target specific pathogens, so researchers must know what they are looking for.
Mosquitoes excrete small amounts of liquid containing genetic traces of viruses and other organisms. Because the waste contains far less mosquito tissue, and therefore less mosquito DNA, than a crushed insect, the scientists reasoned that viral material might be easier to find. The researchers collected two groups of 50 wild Culex mosquitoes from a yard in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 2021 and 2022.
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