Curious entanglements: interactions between mosquitoes, their microbiota, and arboviruses

Mosquitoes naturally harbor a diverse community of microorganisms that play a crucial role in their biology. Mosquito microbiota interactions are abundant and complex. They can dramatically alter the mosquito immune response, and impede or enhance a mosquito's ability to transmit medically important arboviral pathogens. Yet critically, given the massive public health impact of arboviral disease, few such interactions have been well characterized. In this review, we describe the current state of knowledge of the role of microorganisms in mosquito biology, how microbial-induced changes to mosquito immunity moderate infection with arboviruses, cases of mosquito microbial virus interactions with a defined mechanism, and the molecular interactions that underlie the endosymbiotic bacterium Wolbachia's ability to block virus infection in mosquitoes.