Rapid assay to differentiate the two forms of Egyptian Aedes caspius (diptera: culicidae) using acetylcholinesterase gene

Members of Aedes caspius mosquitoes are incriminated to be a potential reservoir of “Rift Valley Fever Virus” (RVF) during interepizootic periods in Egypt. Ae. caspius contains two distinct forms which are morphologically indistinguishable but differ in physiology and behavior; Ae. caspius form (a) requires a blood meal for each egg batch(anautogeny), is unable to mate in confined spaces(eurygamous). The second form (b) lays egg batch without blood meal (autogenous) and can mate in confined spaces (stenogamous). In this work, we collected the autogenous and anautogenous forms of Ae. caspius from two different breeding habitats in the Qalyubia Governorate. Analysis of the Drosophila ace-Orthologous acetylecholinesterase gene revealed that a single polymorphic region characterized each species. Based on this region, specific primers were used to amplify the entire section of intron II, sections of Exon 2 and Exon 3 of ace-2 gene for differentiating the complex species of mosquitoes. The amplicons of anautogenous form sized 441 pb and increase 116 bp than autogenous form of Ae. caspius. High rates of point mutations were addressed; deletion/insertion events are 120 bases. The transversion mutations were 44 bases and were relatively close to the transtion mutations 43 base. The genetic distance was 0.01 between the two forms.