While strides to control the transmission of malaria likely contributed to the reduction in overall mortality and incidence over the last several decades, continued understanding of the mosquito vector populations are needed for improved targeted interventions. Over 1.5 million cases of malaria were reported in Ethiopia in 2017. These results provide supporting data for the development of molecular assays for delineation of Anopheles in east Ethiopia. The lack of clarity from COI sequence analysis highlights potential challenges of species identification within species complexes. arabiensis from other taxa in Anopheles gambiae complex, but could distinguish An. In contrast, analysis of COI locus could not be used to delineate An. Analyses of ITS2 locus resulted in delineation of both species. Two species from the east Ethiopian collection, Anopheles arabiensis and Anopheles pretoriensis were identified. Both NCBI’s Basic Local Alignment Search tool (BLAST) and phylogenetic analysis using a maximum-likelihood approach were performed to identify species of Anopheles specimens. PCR and Sanger sequencing were performed for portions of the ITS2 and COI loci. MethodsĪdult mosquitoes were collected from the Harewe locality (east) and Meki (east central) Ethiopia. Here the utility of the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) and cytochrome oxidase I (COI) loci for detection of Anopheles species from understudied regions of eastern Ethiopia was investigated.

To develop effective molecular assays for Anopheles identification, it is important to evaluate different genetic loci for the ability to characterize species and population level variation. Molecular approaches increase the accuracy and interoperability of vector surveillance data. The recent finding of a typically non-African Anopheles species in eastern Ethiopia emphasizes the need for detailed species identification and characterization for effective malaria vector surveillance.

Codoncode aligner blast tcp