| Summary: | Malaria ranks among the deadliest infectious diseases that kills more than one million persons everyyear. The mosquito is an obligatory vector for malaria transmission. In the mosquito, Plasmodiumundergoes a complex series of developmental events that includes transformation into severaldistinct morphological forms and the crossing of two different epithelia—midgut and salivarygland. Circumstantial evidence suggests that crossing of the epithelia requires specific interactionsbetween Plasmodium and epithelial surface molecules. By use of a phage display library we haveidentified a small peptide-SM1—that binds to the surfaces of the mosquito midgut and salivaryglands. Transgenic Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes expressing a SM1 tetramer from a bloodinducibleand gut-specific promoter are substantially impaired in their ability to sustain parasitedevelopment and transmission. A second effector gene, phospholipase A2, also impairs parasitetransmission in transgenic mosquitoes. These findings have important implications for the developmentof new strategies for malaria control.
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