Mosquito EST Project

    The objective of this study is to use genomic/proteomic mass-screens to identify important mosquito defense factors that will open new avenues in mosquito innate immunity research, with the ultimate goal of developing novel mosquito-borne disease control strategies. To achieve this, an international collaborative mosquito EST project has accelerated between Yang-Ming University and University of Wisconsin. A further step toward this goal is to establish a bioinformatic system adopting our ongoing mosquito EST project. A bioinformatic home page of mosquitoes will include all information from our analyzed data in a convenient form for mosquito immunity research. Furthermore, proteomic analysis will provide additional insight regarding gene products actually associated with different immune responses. Continuing functional assays of individual cDNAs and proteins will provide a more thorough understanding of mosquito defense mechanisms. Eventually, one should be able to utilize this comprehensive knowledge of mosquito innate immune responses to develop new strategies for blocking the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases.



Background

   Mosquito-borne diseases are among the most devastating in modern times. Malaria is a particularly threatening disease that already affects 500 million people. Diseases caused by mosquito-borne viruses, most importantly dengue fever, also are on the rise. Unfortunately, the progress of conventional mosquito-borne disease control has been limited by the rapidly increasing emergence of multiple drug-resistant pathogens and insecticide-resistant vectors. Therefore, alternative strategies for controlling these diseases are desperately needed. Armigeres sulbalbatus, is not as medically important as Anopheles gambiae or Aedes aegypti, but it is the best model system for studies of melanization immune responses, the predominant defence response against invading microorganisms, especially malarial parasites. Several cDNA libraries were constructed from immune-activated Ar. sulbalbatus by Prof. Bruce Christensen (U. of Wisconsin). A mass EST sequencing program for all libraries is proceeding under a collaborative agreement between Yang-Ming University and University of Wisconsin. By extending our EST project to bioinformatic and proteomic analyses, we will establish a unique mosquito database corresponding to mosquito gene expression and pathogen invasion. These results also will be valuable for devising new control strategies for a variety of mosquito-borne pathogens, e.g., dengue virus control in Aedes aegypti. For example, "mosquito antibacterial peptides" already have been shown to reduce malaria development in mosquitoes. This project should be encouraged by “National Research Program for Genomic Medicine” because it is an integrated program, involving genomics, bioinformatics, proteomics and functional assays, and it is an international collaboration as well.