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  3. Harnessing engineered symbionts to combat concurrent malaria and arboviruses transmission

Harnessing engineered symbionts to combat concurrent malaria and arboviruses transmission

  • Nat Commun. 2025 Mar 1;16(1):2104. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-57343-2.
Wenqian Hu # 1 2,  Han Gao # 1 2 3,  Chunlai Cui # 1 2 4,  Lihua Wang 1 2,  Yiguan Wang 1 2,  Yifei Li 1 2,  Fang Li 1 2,  Yitong Zheng 1 2,  Tianyu Xia 1 2,  Sibao Wang 5 6
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 New Cornerstone Science Laboratory, CAS Key Laboratory of Insect Developmental and Evolutionary Biology, State Key Laboratory of Plant Trait Design, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.
  • 2 CAS Center for Excellence in Biotic Interactions, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
  • 3 School of Basic Medical Sciences, Suzhou Medical College of Soochow University, Suzhou, China.
  • 4 Shanghai Institute of Wildlife Epidemics, School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.
  • 5 New Cornerstone Science Laboratory, CAS Key Laboratory of Insect Developmental and Evolutionary Biology, State Key Laboratory of Plant Trait Design, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China. sbwang@cemps.ac.cn.
  • 6 CAS Center for Excellence in Biotic Interactions, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. sbwang@cemps.ac.cn.
  • # Contributed equally.
PMID: 40025068 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-57343-2
Abstract

Concurrent malaria and arbovirus infections pose significant public health challenges in tropical and subtropical regions, demanding innovative control strategies. Here, we describe a strategy that employs multifunctional engineered symbiotic bacteria to suppress concurrent transmission of malaria parasites, dengue, and Zika viruses by various vector mosquitoes. The symbiotic bacterium Serratia AS1, which efficiently spreads through Anopheles and Aedes populations, is engineered to simultaneously produce anti-Plasmodium and anti-arbovirus effector proteins controlled by a selected blood-induced promoter. Laboratory and outdoor field-cage studies show that the multifunctional engineered symbiotic strains effectively inhibit Plasmodium infection in Anopheles mosquitoes and arbovirus Infection in Aedes mosquitoes. Our findings provide the foundation for the use of engineered symbiotic bacteria as a powerful tool to combat the concurrent transmission of malaria and arbovirus diseases.

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