Abstract
Since the discovery of natural malaria vector populations infected by the endosymbi-ont bacterium Wolbachia, a renewed interest has arisen for using this bacterium as analternative for malaria control. Among naturally infected mosquitoes, Anopheles mou-cheti, a major malaria mosquito in Central Africa, exhibits one of the highest preva-lences of Wolbachia infection. To better understand whether this maternally inheritedbacterium could be used for malaria control, we investigated Wolbachia influence inAn. moucheti populations naturally infected by the malaria parasite Plasmodium fal-ciparum. To this end, we collected mosquitoes in a village from Cameroon, CentralAfrica, where this mosquito is the main malaria vector. We found that the prevalenceof Wolbachia bacterium was almost fixed in the studied mosquito population, andwas higher than previously recorded. We also quantified Wolbachia in whole mosqui-toes and dissected abdomens, confirming that the bacterium is also elsewhere than inthe abdomen, but at lower density. Finally, we analyzed the association of Wolbachiapresence and density on P. falciparum infection. Wolbachia density was slightly higherin mosquitoes infected with the malaria parasite than in uninfected mosquitoes.However, we observed no correlation between the P. falciparum and Wolbachia densi-ties. In conclusion, our study indicates that naturally occurring Wolbachia infection isnot associated to P. falciparum development within An. moucheti mosquitoes.