Fig. 1

The effect of wMel on DENV infection in Aedes aegypti ovaries. DENV prevalence and viral load in the ovaries of mosquitoes with (+Wolb, blue circles) and without (-Wolb, black circles) wMel Wolbachia infection. Mosquitoes were challenged with DENV-4 orally or via intrathoracic injection, or with DENV-1 via injection. Mosquitoes were fed on a virus-free blood meal either 16 days after DENV oral infection or 7 days post-DENV injection, with these times corresponding to the blood meal used to induce egg production in our vertical transmission experiments. At 72 h post-feeding, ovaries were dissected in sterile 1× PBS, total RNA was extracted, and genomic DENV levels quantified via RT-qPCR. Prevalence data were compared by Fisher’s exact test (***P < 0.001, ns: P > 0.05). Viral load data were compared pairwise by Mann-Whitney U-test (****P < 0.0001, *P < 0.05). Horizontal red lines represent treatment medians