The Identification and Characterization of Mosquito Peroxidases and their role in orchestration of Mosquito Immunity

Abstract

Anophelines are notorious vectors of Plasmodium parasites that cause malaria and in the recent years there is an increase in cases reported worldwide with India contributing the 4th highest number of malaria cases and deaths (WHO report, 2017). Research in the past few decades has focussed on the exploration of strategies to control malaria in the vector itself, thus blocking the transmission of the parasite to human host. The emergence of drug-resistant parasites and insecticide resistance coupled with economic challenges as well as the implementation of control strategies are major hurdles in this area. Moreover, with a renewed emphasis on global eradication of malaria, the genomebased discovery of novel anti-transmission candidates have been identified as one of the priority research areas for the immediate future. In particular, the interactions between the mosquito immune system and/or midgut microbiota and its pathogens are newlinecritical determinants of the outcome of pathogen infection and transmission. newlineThere are two branches of immunity in mosquitoes: the humoral and the cellular newlineimmunity, and pathogens face an intricate challenge against the cascade of response newlineelicited by a systematic and concerted approach by these two branches. While the newlinePlasmodium parasite interacts with the midgut environment upon entry, with the response being mainly humoral in nature initially, the bacteria, virus or fungi encounter both cellular and humoral responses upon their recognition. However, pathogens have newlineevolved various strategies to bypass the mosquito immunity. In this regard, various newlinemosquito molecules important for pathogen development and/or transmission have newlinebeen identified through decades of research. Here, we have utilized the currently newlineavailable whole-genome transcript microarray data, previous literature reports, and newlineemployed transcriptional analysis, RNAi-mediated gene silencing, as well as other tools to investigate the role of two heme peroxidases (HPXs) DBLOX, a double peroxidase i.e. it has two heme peroxida