Hitoshi Tsujimoto, Michelle A. E. Anderson, Kevin M. Myles, Zach N. Adelman
Abstract
Mosquito-transmitted viral pathogens, such as dengue and Zika, afflict tens of thousands of people every year. These viruses are transmitted during the blood-feeding process that is required for mosquito reproduction, the most important vector being Aedes aegypti. While vertebrate blood is rich in protein, its high iron content is potentially toxic to mosquitoes. Although iron transport and sequestration are essential in the reproduction of vector mosquitoes, we discovered that culicine mosquitoes lack homologs of the common iron transporter NRAMP. Using a novel cell-based screen, we identified two ZIP and one ZnT genes as candidate iron transporters in the mosquito A. aegypti, the vector of dengue, Zika, and chikungunya. We determined the organ-specific expression pattern of these genes at critical time points in early reproduction. The result indicates modulation of these genes upon blood feeding, especially a ZIP13 homolog that is highly up-regulated after blood feeding, suggesting its importance in iron mobilization during blood digestion and reproduction. Gene silencing resulted in differential iron accumulation in the midgut and ovaries. This study sets a foundation for further investigation of iron transport and control strategies of this viral vector.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 08 May 2018.
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