The Aedes aegypti RNA interference response against Zika virus in the context of co-infection with dengue and chikungunya viruses

This is the corresponding data of the Publication in Plos Neglected tropical diseases. Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne human-pathogenic arbovirus of the Flaviviridae family, genus Flavivirus. Other arboviruses, including dengue (DENV) or chikungunya (CHIKV) virus, can occur in the same regions as ZIKV and are also transmitted by Aedes aegypti. Notably, it has been shown that these viruses can co-infect this mosquito, andco-transmission occurs. Such processes may add to the serious public health issues already linked to those pathogens. Arbovirus infections in mosquitoes are controlled through an immune response called RNA interference (RNAi). It is however unknown whether immune responses changs when a mosquito is exposed to a co-infection of ZIKV with either DENV or CHIKV. In this study, we provide evidence that ZIKV co-infections with CHIKV or DENV are similarly well controlled by RNAi as single infections. These findings give new insights into the dynamics of arboviral co-infections in mosquito vectors that increase our understanding of co-infection scenarios during arbovirus outbreaks.This research was supported by the German Centre for Infection Research (DZIF) (TTU 01.701 and TTU 01.708) (ES), the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under ZIKAlliance Grant Agreement No 734548 (ES, ABF, AK), the UK MRC (MC_UU_12014/8) (AK). This publication was supported by the European Virus Archive goes Global (EVAg) project that has received funding from the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 653316. This work was supported by the DFG Research Infrastructure NGS_CC (project 407495230) as part of the Next Generation Sequencing Competence Network (project 423957469). NGS analyses were carried out at the Competence Centre for Genomic Analysis (Kiel). The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results