Transgenic mosquitoes set to beat malaria
5 Mar 2009 by Evoluted New Media
Work published in the Public Library of Science, suggests that the spread of malaria can be controlled with the introduction of transgenic mosquitoes into native mosquito population.
Work published in the Public Library of Science, suggests that the spread of malaria can be controlled with the introduction of transgenic mosquitoes into native mosquito population.
The transgenic mosquitoes would contain a gene that codes for a protein thought to block the insects ability to pass malaria into a host
John Marshall and Charles Taylor, both from the University of California, Los Angeles,
Think the introduction of these transgenic mosquitoes into the wild population would introduce the gene for the blocking protein into the local gene pool, and hopefully a strain of mosquitoes would then develop that are unable to transmit malaria between hosts. This may not eradicate malaria, but would certainly slow down the transmission between humans.
While malaria has been controlled in many parts of the world, there are still pockets, such as sub-Saharan Africa, where there are still an estimated one million deaths per year due to the plasmodium family of parasites. There are currently a variety of new approaches to control the spread of malaria, one in particular focuses on the mosquito, the vector for human to human transmission of the infection. When the mosquito feasts on infected blood, an oocyst forms in the gut wall of the mosquito, which then ruptures, releasing sporozoites that pass through the gut wall and end up in the salivary glands, ready to infect another host. Research has identified receptor sites on the gut wall and in the salivary glands needed for uptake of the sporozoites. Transgenic modification of the mosquito genome to produce a small protein to block these receptors will mean that the mosquito cannot pass the parasite into another host.
By Georgina Lavender
