Direct feeding on dengue patients yields new insights into human-to-mosquito dengue virus transmission

Abstract

Evaluation of: Nguyen MN, Duong TH, Trung VT et al. Host and viral features of human dengue cases shape the population of infected and infectious Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 110(22), 9072–9077 (2013). Dengue virus (DENV) is a mosquito-borne virus of immense and growing global health importance. Despite decades of research, many fundamental components of DENV biology remain poorly understood. The Nguyen et al. study shines new light on one such component: the relationship between DENV blood viremia and infectiousness to mosquitoes. By directly feeding mosquitoes on infected people, the authors identified the viremia levels required for mosquitoes to become infected with each of the four DENV serotypes. Based on these results, the authors then indicated that ambulatory dengue cases who did not visit a hospital had viremia levels sufficient to infect mosquitoes. In avoiding laboratory surrogates, this study has significantly improved our understanding of DENV with implications for modeling and vaccine development.