Antibody responses to SG6, AgSAP, and SAMSP1 following Anopheline salivary exposure.

Background: Current methods to determine exposure to malaria-infected mosquitoes via entomologic investigations are technically challenging and can be inaccurate in low transmission settings. Antibody responses to mosquito salivary antigens (MSA) like gSG6-P1 have been used as biomarkers of exposure to mosquito bites.

Methods: This study investigates two novel gambiae antigens, AgSAP and SAMSP1, as potential biomarkers of vector exposure.

Signaling between mammalian adiponectin and a mosquito adiponectin receptor reduces transmission.

When a female mosquito takes a blood meal from a mammalian host, components of the blood meal can affect mosquito fitness and indirectly influence pathogen infectivity. We identified a pathway involving an adiponectin receptor, which, triggered by adiponectin from an incoming blood meal, decreases infection in the mosquito. Activation of this pathway negatively regulates lipophorin expression, an important lipid transporter that both enhances egg development and infection.

A mosquito AgTRIO mRNA vaccine contributes to immunity against malaria.

Malaria begins when an infected mosquito injects saliva containing Plasmodium sporozoites into the skin of a vertebrate host. To prevent malaria, vaccination is the most effective strategy and there is an urgent need for new strategies to enhance current pathogen-based vaccines. Active or passive immunization against a mosquito saliva protein, AgTRIO, contributes to protection against Plasmodium infection of mice.

Grappling with the tick microbiome.

Ixodes scapularis and Ixodes pacificus are the predominant vectors of multiple human pathogens, including Borrelia burgdorferi, one of the causative agents of Lyme disease in North America. Differences in the habitats and host preferences of these closely related tick species present an opportunity to examine key aspects of the tick microbiome. While advances in sequencing technologies have accelerated a descriptive understanding of the tick microbiome, molecular and mechanistic insights into the tick microbiome are only beginning to emerge.