REVIEW article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Virology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1624662
Insect-specific viruses: transmission dynamics and biological control strategies against arboviruses
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Clinical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
- 2Department of Epidemiology and Global Health, Umeå, Sweden, Umeå, Sweden
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Mosquitoes are known to vector arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) that pose a global public health issue in the form of mosquito-borne viral diseases such as chikungunya fever, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, yellow fever, and Zika. Besides, mosquitoes may also carry insect-specific viruses (ISVs), which are evolutionarily alike arboviruses yet do not infect vertebrates. These ISVs have been shown to affect the ability of mosquitoes to transmit arboviruses, as well as potentially inhibit arbovirus infections in vertebrate hosts. Yet, ISVs still constitute a relatively new and little-researched area where further studies may yield new knowledge regarding their distribution, their future importance in the control of mosquito-borne viral disease and potential role in biological control of mosquitoes. This review provides insights into ISV classification, transmission, and biology, as well as historical and future aspects. It mainly focuses on the characterization of the transmission dynamics of ISVs to highlight the various potential arboviral pathogen transmission blocking mechanisms along with evolution and host tropism. The review also provides additional information on the potential use of ISVs as a method of biological control in comparison to other proposed methods as well as delving into current research into arbovirus-based vaccines and antiviral drug development.
Keywords: Insect-specific virus, Flaviviridae, Peribunyaviridae, Togaviridae, Arbovirus, mosquito, biological control
Received: 07 May 2025; Accepted: 13 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wilkman, Kaarle, Luande, Lantto, Evander and Lwande. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Olivia Wesula Lwande, Department of Clinical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
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