When ingested by a mosquito, the malaria parasite relies on an unusual form of gliding motility to escape from the rapidly deteriorating blood meal.
The immediate aim of our study was to analyse the behaviour of the malarial mosquito Anopheles coluzzii (An. gambiae species complex) near a human host with the ultimate aim of contributing to our fundamental understanding of mosquito host-seeking behaviour and the overall aim of identifying behaviours that could be exploited to enhance sampling and control strategies.
Taken together, these findings validate the hypothesis in question and suggest that suboptimal environments for An. gambiae larval development results in the release of DMDS, DMTS and sulcatone that impact the response valence of gravid females to directly modulate the chemical ecology of oviposition site selection.
However, little was known about how Ivermectin targets mosquitoes – it was developed to treat diseases in nematodes – so Meyers, Brian Foy and a team of colleagues from Colorado State University, including Meg Gray, Wojtek Kuklinski, Lucas Johnson, Christopher Snow, William Black IV and Kathryn Partin, decided to find out more about the drug's modus operandi.
In this work, we describe the volatile chemical profile of cultured malaria parasites. Among the identified compounds are several plant-like terpenes and terpene derivatives, including known mosquito attractants.
This in-depth Illumina sequencing and assembly of the An. gambiae midgut transcriptome doubled the number of known transcripts and tripled the number of variants known in this mosquito species.
One of the weaknesses in our fight against malaria is that we are missing the opportunity to attack other mosquito-transmitted diseases. It is the weakness of any "vertical" approach to disease control.
We explore the effect of PPF exposure at seven time points around blood feeding on individual Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto and Culex quinquefasciatus fecundity and ability to transfer in laboratory assays.
Taken together, this study demonstrates that the normal physiological process of a blood meal activates the innate immune response in mosquitoes. This process is likely in part regulated by Ras-MAPK signaling, highlighting a novel mechanistic link between blood feeding and immunity.
Analysis of this vegetation can be done using satellite information and mapping programs, such as Google Earth, but manual quantification is difficult and can be tedious and subjective. A more objective method is required.
