Although Anopheles mosquitoes are the vectors for human Plasmodium spp., there are also other mosquito species-among them culicines (Culex spp., Aedes spp.)-present in malaria-endemic areas. Culicine mosquitoes transmit arboviruses and filarial worms to humans and are vectors for avian Plasmodium spp., but have never been observed to transmit human Plasmodium spp. When ingested by a culicine mo...

The passage through the mosquito is a major bottleneck for malaria parasite populations and a target of interventions aiming to block disease transmission. Here, we used DNA microarrays to profile the developmental transcriptomes of the rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei in vivo, in the midgut of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes, from parasite stages in the midgut blood bolus to sporulating...

The malaria parasite suffers severe population losses as it passes through its mosquito vector. Contributing factors are the essential but highly constrained developmental transitions that the parasite undergoes in the mosquito midgut, combined with the invasion of the midgut epithelium by the malaria ookinete (recently described as a principal elicitor of the innate immune response in the Plas...

Anopheline mosquitoes are the major vectors of human malaria. Parasite-mosquito interactions are a critical aspect of disease transmission and a potential target for malaria control. Current investigations into parasite-mosquito interactions frequently assume that genetically resistant and susceptible mosquitoes exist in nature. Therefore, comparisons between the Plasmodium susceptibility profi...

Plasmodium and dengue virus, the causative agents of the two most devastating vector-borne diseases, malaria and dengue, are transmitted by the two most important mosquito vectors, Anopheles gambiae and Aedes aegypti, respectively. Insect-bacteria associations have been shown to influence vector competence for human pathogens through multi-faceted actions that include the elicitation of the ins...

Penetration of the mosquito midgut epithelium is obligatory for the further development of Plasmodium parasites. Therefore, blocking the parasite from invading the midgut wall disrupts the transmission of malaria. Despite such a pivotal role in malaria transmission, the cellular and molecular interactions that occur during the invasion are not understood. Here, we demonstrate that the ookinetes...

During the invasion of the mosquito midgut epithelium, Plasmodium ookinetes come to rest on the basal lamina, where they transform into the sporozoite-producing oocysts. Laminin, one of the basal lamina's major components, has previously been shown to bind several surface proteins of Plasmodium ookinetes. Here, using the recently developed RNAi technique in mosquitoes, we used a specific dsRNA ...

The mosquito midgut and salivary glands are key entry and exit points for pathogens such as Plasmodium parasites and Dengue viruses. This video protocol demonstrates dissection techniques for removal of the midgut and salivary glands from Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.

Mosquito larvae use a digestive strategy that is relatively rare in nature. The anterior half of the larval mosquito midgut has a luminal pH that ranges between 10.5 and 11.5. Most other organisms, both large and small, initiate digestion in an acid medium. The relative uniqueness of the highly alkaline digestive strategy has been a long-standing research focus in larval lepidopterans. More rec...

During the course of its development in the mosquito and transmission to a new vertebrate host, the malaria parasite must interact with the mosquito midgut and invade the gut epithelium. To investigate how the parasite recognizes the midgut before invasion, we have developed an in vitro adhesion assay based on combining fluorescently labelled ookinetes with isolated midgut epithelia from blood-...