Keywords: Plasmodium

Bacterial warriors fight mosquito-borne diseases

Alejandra Manjarrez,  Drug Discovery News,  2024.
Every time a mosquito bites a person, multiple feasts take place. As in most animals, a meal provides nutrients to the mosquito as well as to the troop of bacteria that inhabits its gut. Occasionally, the mosquito may also ingest a parasite: a Plasmodium protozoan responsible ...
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A recombinant Aspergillus oryzae fungus transmitted from larvae to adults of Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes inhibits malaria parasite oocyst development

L. Kianifard, A. M. Rafiqi, O. Akcakir, A. S. I. Aly, P. F. Billingsley and S. Uysal,  Scientific Reports,  13:12177. 2023.
The control of malaria parasite transmission from mosquitoes to humans is hampered by decreasing efficacies of insecticides, development of drug resistance against the last-resort antimalarials, and the absence of effective vaccines. Herein, the anti-plasmodial transmission ...
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A mosquito symbiont takes down malaria

A. Taglialegna,  Nature Reviews Microbiology,  2023.
Malaria, a parasitic infection transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes, is globally prevalent. Control strategies for malaria include insecticides and antiparasitic drugs, which target the mosquito vector or the parasite in the human host, respectively. The effectiveness of these ...
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A naturally occurring bacteria can stop the malaria parasite right in a mosquito’s gut

A. Bhattacharya,  Quartz,  2023.
Scientists at a GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) research facility in Spain discovered that a strain of Delftia tsuruhatensis bacterium, named Tres Cantos 1 (TC1), inhibits the malaria parasite in mosquitoes, known as Plasmodium. Researchers suspected something was going on when the ...
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Combining transgenesis with paratransgenesis to fight malaria

W. Huang, J. Vega-Rodriguez, C. Kizito, S.-J. Cha and M. Jacobs-Lorena,  eLife,  11:e77584. 2022.
Malaria is among the deadliest infectious diseases, and Plasmodium, the causative agent, needs to complete a complex development cycle in its vector mosquito for transmission to occur. Two promising strategies to curb transmission are transgenesis, consisting of genetically ...
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Gene drive mosquitoes can aid malaria elimination by retarding Plasmodium sporogonic development

A. Hoermann, T. Habtewold, P. Selvaraj, G. Del Corsano, P. Capriotti, M. G. Inghilterra, K. M. Temesgen, G. K. Christophides and N. Windbichler,  bioRxiv,  2022.02.15.480588. 2022.
Gene drives hold promise for the genetic control of malaria vectors. The development of vector population modification strategies hinges on the availability of effector mechanisms impeding parasite development in transgenic mosquitoes. We augmented a midgut gene of the malaria ...
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Horizontal Transmission of the Symbiont Microsporidia MB in Anopheles arabiensis

G. Nattoh, T. Maina, E. E. Makhulu, L. Mbaisi, E. Mararo, F. G. Otieno, T. Bukhari, T. O. Onchuru, E. Teal, J. Paredes, J. L. Bargul, D. M. Mburu, E. A. Onyango, G. Magoma, S. P. Sinkins and J. K. Herren,  Frontiers in Microbiology,  12. 2021.
The recently discovered Anopheles symbiont, Microsporidia MB, has a strong malaria transmission-blocking phenotype in Anopheles arabiensis, the predominant Anopheles gambiae species complex member in many active transmission areas in eastern Africa. The ability of Microsporidia ...
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A natural symbiotic bacterium drives mosquito refractoriness to Plasmodium infection via secretion of an antimalarial lipase

H. Gao, L. Bai, Y. M. Jiang, W. Huang, L. L. Wang, S. G. Li, G. D. Zhu, D. Q. Wang, Z. H. Huang, X. S. Li, J. Cao, L. B. Jiang, M. Jacobs-Lorena, S. Zhan and S. B. Wang,  Nature Microbiology,  25. 2021.
The stalling global progress in the fight against malaria prompts the urgent need to develop new intervention strategies. Whilst engineered symbiotic bacteria have been shown to confer mosquito resistance to parasite infection, a major challenge for field implementation is to ...
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