TOOLS AND RESOURCES Single mosquito metatranscriptomics identifies vectors, emerging pathogens and reservoirs in one assay Joshua Batson1†, Gytis Dudas2†, Eric Haas-Stapleton3†, Amy L Kistler1†*, Lucy M Li1†, Phoenix Logan1†, Kalani Ratnasiri4†, Hanna Retallack5† 1Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco, United States; 2Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre, Gothenburg, Sweden; 3Alameda County Mosquito Abatement District, Hayward, United States; 4Program in Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, United States; 5Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, United States Abstract Mosquitoes are major infectious disease-carrying vectors. Assessment of current and future risks associated with the mosquito population requires knowledge of the full repertoire of pathogens they carry, including novel viruses, as well as their blood meal sources. Unbiased metatranscriptomic sequencing of individual mosquitoes offers a straightforward, rapid, and quantitative means to acquire this information. Here, we profile 148 diverse wild-caught mosquitoes collected in California and detect sequences from eukaryotes, prokaryotes, 24 known and 46 novel viral species. Importantly, sequencing individuals greatly enhanced the value of the biological information obtained. It allowed us to (a) speciate host mosquito, (b) compute the prevalence of each microbe and recognize a high frequency of viral co-infections, (c) associate animal pathogens with specific blood meal sources, and (d) apply simple co-occurrence methods to recover previously undetected components of highly prevalent segmented viruses. In the context *For correspondence: of emerging diseases, where knowledge about vectors, pathogens, and reservoirs is lacking, the
[email protected] approaches described here can provide actionable information for public health surveillance and †These authors contributed intervention decisions.