Malaria-Resistant Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae); The Principle is Proven, But Will the Effectors Be Effective?

Over the last few decades, a substantial number of anti-malarial effector genes have been evaluated for their ability to block parasite infection in the mosquito vector. While many of these approaches have yielded significant effects on either parasite intensity or prevalence of infection, just a few have been able to completely block transmission. Additionally, many approaches, while effective against the parasite, also disrupt or alter important aspects of mosquito physiology, leading to corresponding changes in lifespan, reproduction, and immunity. As the most promising approaches move towards field-based evaluation, questions of effector gene robustness and durability move to the forefront. In this forum piece, we critically evaluate past effector gene approaches with an eye towards developing a deeper pipeline to augment the current best candidates.

More related to this:

Requirements for Driving Antipathogen Effector Genes into Populations of Disease Vectors by Homing

Antiviral effectors and gene drive strategies for mosquito population suppression or replacement to mitigate arbovirus transmission by Aedes aegypti

Winning the tug-of-war between effector gene design and pathogen evolution in vector population replacement strategies

Current Effector and Gene-Drive Developments to Engineer Arbovirus-Resistant Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae) for a Sustainable Population Replacement Strategy in the Field

ReMOT Control Delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 Ribonucleoprotein Complex to Induce Germline Mutagenesis in the Disease Vector Mosquitoes Culex pipiens pallens (Diptera: Culicidae).