There are many vector-borne diseases, including dengue, that lack vaccines or effective treatment options, resulting in vector control being the primary disease control strategy. Wolbachia, an intracellular bacterium that can spread itself through a population via cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), has been shown to inhibit the transmission of a number of the deadly human pathogens, like dengue and Plasmodium, in mosquitoes. In order to utilize Wolbachia to make mosquitoes inhospitable to the pathogens, we have to create a more efficient population replacement strategy such that disease transmission can be interrupted completely and rapidly. In this work, we performed Aedes aegypti laboratory cage studies in which the Wolbachia-infected females were released once, at the beginning, followed by continued inundative infected male release at every generation. We found that this inundative male release could accelerate the process of population replacement. We also designed a new mathematical model that is capable of accurately predicting the generation in which population replacement will occur. To develop a population replacement strategy for Aedes albopictus we introduced the third type of Wolbachia, wPip, into this mosquito species to create a transinfected line carrying a triple Wolbachia infection. We characterized the pattern of CI induced by this novel artificial infection through crossing assays. We found that the triply infected Ae. albopictus induces unidirectional CI when crossed with the wild type doubly infected mosquitoes, supporting its potential to be used in population replacement study.
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