Recent developments in genotyping technologies coupled with the growing
desire to characterise genome variation in Anopheles populations opens the
opportunity to develop more effective genotyping strategies for
high-throughput screening. A major bottleneck of this goal is nucleic acid
extraction. Here, we examined the feasibility of using intact portions of
a mosquito's leg as sources of template DNA for whole genome
amplification (WGA) by Primer-Extension Pre-amplification. We used the
Agena Biosciences MassARRAY platform (formerly Sequenom) to genotype 78
SNPs for 265 WGA leg samples. We performed nucleic acid extraction on 36
mosquito carcasses and compared the genotype call concordance with their
corresponding legs, and observed full concordance. Using three legs
instead of one improved genotyping success rates (96% versus 89%,
respectively), although this difference was not significant. We provide a
proof of concept that WGA reactions can be performed directly on mosquito
legs, thereby eliminating the need to extract nucleic acid. This approach
is straightforward, sensitive and allows both species determination and
genotyping of Anopheles mosquitoes to be performed in a high-throughput
manner. Our protocol also leaves the mosquito body intact facilitating
other experimental analysis to be undertaken on the same sample. Based on
our findings, this method would also be suitable for use with other insect
species. SNPdataThis spreadsheet contains the genomic data used to demonstrate the feasability of using intact portions of a mosquito's leg as sources of template DNA for whole genome amplifcation. The "Data" tab contains sample and genotype information on 292 Anopheles gambiae sensu latu samples collected in Uganda.File S1 (1).xlsx