Detection of Plasmodium falciparum in laboratory‑reared and naturally infected wild mosquitoes using near‑infrared spectroscopy
Loading...
Date
2021-04-21
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Scientifc Reports
Abstract
There is an urgent need for high throughput, afordable methods of detecting pathogens inside
insect vectors to facilitate surveillance. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has shown promise to
detect arbovirus and malaria in the laboratory but has not been evaluated in field conditions. Here we
investigate the ability of NIRS to identify Plasmodium falciparum in Anopheles coluzzii mosquitoes.
NIRS models trained on laboratory-reared mosquitoes infected with wild malaria parasites can detect
the parasite in comparable mosquitoes with moderate accuracy though fails to detect oocysts or
sporozoites in naturally infected feld caught mosquitoes. Models trained on feld mosquitoes were
unable to predict the infection status of other feld mosquitoes. Restricting analyses to mosquitoes of
uninfectious and highly-infectious status did improve predictions suggesting sensitivity and specifcity
may be better in mosquitoes with higher numbers of parasites. Detection of infection appears
restricted to homogenous groups of mosquitoes diminishing NIRS utility for detecting malaria within
mosquitoes.
Description
Keywords
Pedro M. Esperança, KatarzynaA. Sala, Nigeria, ACE: Mycotoxin and Food Safety, ACEMFS, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Nigeria, Josua Blight