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Mosquito biology. Evolution of sexual traits influencing vectorial capacity in anopheline mosquitoes.

  • Mitchell SN Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
  • Kakani EG Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Dipartimento di Medicina Sperimentale, Università degli Studi di Perugia, Perugia 06100, Italy.
  • South A Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
  • Howell PI Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30329, USA.
  • Waterhouse RM Department of Genetic Medicine and Development, University of Geneva Medical School, Geneva 1211, Switzerland. Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Geneva 1211, Switzerland. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
  • Catteruccia F Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Dipartimento di Medicina Sperimentale, Università degli Studi di Perugia, Perugia 06100, Italy. fcatter@hsph.harvard.edu.
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  • 2015-02-28
Published in:
  • Science (New York, N.Y.). - 2015
Animals
Anopheles
Biological Evolution
Biological Transport
Ecdysterone
Female
Insect Vectors
Malaria
Male
Mating Preference, Animal
Oogenesis
Oviposition
Phylogeny
English The availability of genome sequences from 16 anopheline species provides unprecedented opportunities to study the evolution of reproductive traits relevant for malaria transmission. In Anopheles gambiae, a likely candidate for sexual selection is male 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E). Sexual transfer of this steroid hormone as part of a mating plug dramatically changes female physiological processes intimately tied to vectorial capacity. By combining phenotypic studies with ancestral state reconstructions and phylogenetic analyses, we show that mating plug transfer and male 20E synthesis are both derived characters that have coevolved in anophelines, driving the adaptation of a female 20E-interacting protein that promotes oogenesis via mechanisms also favoring Plasmodium survival. Our data reveal coevolutionary dynamics of reproductive traits between the sexes likely to have shaped the ability of anophelines to transmit malaria.
Language
  • English
Open access status
bronze
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Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/221978
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