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Browsing by Author "Mitchell, Sara N."

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    Disrupting Mosquito Reproduction and Parasite Development for Malaria Control
    Childs, Lauren M.; Cai, Francisco Y.; Kakani, Evdoxia G.; Mitchell, Sara N.; Paton, Douglas G.; Gabrieli, Paolo; Buckee, Caroline O.; Catteruccia, Flaminia (PLOS, 2016-12-15)
    The control of mosquito populations with insecticide treated bed nets and indoor residual sprays remains the cornerstone of malaria reduction and elimination programs. In light of widespread insecticide resistance in mosquitoes, however, alternative strategies for reducing transmission by the mosquito vector are urgently needed, including the identification of safe compounds that affect vectorial capacity via mechanisms that differ from fast-acting insecticides. Here, we show that compounds targeting steroid hormone signaling disrupt multiple biological processes that are key to the ability of mosquitoes to transmit malaria. When an agonist of the steroid hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) is applied to Anopheles gambiae females, which are the dominant malaria mosquito vector in Sub Saharan Africa, it substantially shortens lifespan, prevents insemination and egg production, and significantly blocks Plasmodium falciparum development, three components that are crucial to malaria transmission. Modeling the impact of these effects on Anopheles population dynamics and Plasmodium transmission predicts that disrupting steroid hormone signaling using 20E agonists would affect malaria transmission to a similar extent as insecticides. Manipulating 20E pathways therefore provides a powerful new approach to tackle malaria transmission by the mosquito vector, particularly in areas affected by the spread of insecticide resistance.
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    Improved reference genome of Aedes aegypti informs arbovirus vector control
    Matthews, Benjamin J.; Dudchenko, Olga; Kingan, Sarah B.; Koren, Sergey; Antoshechkin, Igor; Crawford, Jacob E.; Glassford, William J.; Herre, Margaret; Redmond, Seth N.; Rose, Noah H.; Weedall, Gareth D.; Wu, Yang; Batra, Sanjit S.; Brito-Sierra, Carlos A.; Buckingham, Steven D.; Campbell, Corey L.; Chan, Saki; Cox, Eric; Evans, Benjamin R.; Fansiri, Thanyalak; Filipovic, Igor; Fontaine, Albin; Gloria-Soria, Andrea; Hall, Richard; Joardar, Vinita S.; Jones, Andrew K.; Kay, Raissa G. G.; Kodali, Vamsi K.; Lee, Joyce; Lycett, Gareth J.; Mitchell, Sara N.; Muehling, Jill; Murphy, Michael R.; Omer, Arina D.; Partridge, Frederick A.; Peluso, Paul; Aiden, Aviva Presser; Ramasamy, Vidya; Rasic, Gordana; Roy, Sourav; Saavedra-Rodriguez, Karla; Sharan, Shruti; Sharma, Atashi; Smith, Melissa Laird; Turner, Joe; Weakley, Allison M.; Zhao, Zhilei; Akbari, Omar S.; Black, William C.; Cao, Han; Darby, Alistair C.; Hill, Catherine A.; Johnston, J. Spencer; Murphy, Terence D.; Raikhel, Alexander S.; Sattelle, David B.; Sharakhov, Igor V.; White, Bradley J.; Zhao, Li; Aiden, Erez Lieberman; Mann, Richard S.; Lambrechts, Louis; Powell, Jeffrey R.; Sharakhova, Maria V.; Tu, Zhijian Jake; Robertson, Hugh M.; McBride, Carolyn S.; Hastic, Alex R.; Korlach, Jonas; Neafsey, Daniel E.; Phillippy, Adam M.; Vosshall, Leslie B. (2018-11-22)
    Female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infect more than 400 million people each year with dangerous viral pathogens including dengue, yellow fever, Zika and chikungunya. Progress in understanding the biology of mosquitoes and developing the tools to fight them has been slowed by the lack of a high-quality genome assembly. Here we combine diverse technologies to produce the markedly improved, fully re-annotated AaegL5 genome assembly, and demonstrate how it accelerates mosquito science. We anchored physical and cytogenetic maps, doubled the number of known chemosensory ionotropic receptors that guide mosquitoes to human hosts and egg-laying sites, provided further insight into the size and composition of the sex-determining M locus, and revealed copy-number variation among glutathione S-transferase genes that are important for insecticide resistance. Using high-resolution quantitative trait locus and population genomic analyses, we mapped new candidates for dengue vector competence and insecticide resistance. AaegL5 will catalyse new biological insights and intervention strategies to fight this deadly disease vector.