The Paper's reporters Wu Yuewei and Zhu Yiyi
Scientists have found the "soft underbelly" of Anopheles mosquitoes.
After being bitten by mosquitoes, the skin may be itchy and red, and at worst, it may also suffer from malaria, dengue fever and other diseases. Among them, Anopheles mosquitoes are an important vector for malaria. How to effectively prevent it?
Scientists cracked the code for Anopheles to "marry and fly"
About four hundred years ago, it was observed that in the glimmer of dusk, male and female mosquitoes flew in clusters and chose mates. In 1634, this was explicitly documented. This phenomenon is known as "marriage flying". Isn't it a good opportunity to kill mosquitoes when you fly in a wedding swarm? What attracts mosquitoes together? Is it sound waves, colors, light or smells?
Since 2013, Chinese scientists have been conducting research on this.
In the early morning of January 22, the research team led by Wang Sibao, a researcher at the Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, published a paper entitled "Biological Clock Genes, Light and Ambient Temperature Synergistic Regulation of Sexual Pheromone Synthesis, Marriage, Flight and Mating of the Malaria Vector Anopheles Mosquito" in the international top academic journal Science.
There are many types of mosquitoes, and the main common ones are Anopheles, Aedes mosquitoes and Culex mosquitoes. Among them, Anopheles mosquitoes, also known as Anopheles mosquitoes, are mainly active at night and are vectors for malaria. The study cracked the code for The Anopheles to marry and flew, and was the first to find its sexual pheromones, a twenty-hexadecane substance that drags a long carbon chain, which is the mysterious "perfume" of male mosquitoes.
If this heptaxantaxane substance was synthesized and applied to the abdomen of male Anopheles mosquitoes, the researchers found that for female mosquitoes, the male mosquito's attractiveness increased significantly, and the courtship success rate and mating rate increased.
Can this substance be developed as a green mosquito control technology to reduce the use of pesticides?
"With the help of the institute, we have applied for a patent." On January 21, Wang Sibao told the surging news (www.thepaper.cn) that his research team has also found a signaling pathway and key genes that regulate this sexual pheromone, and they are currently working on its receptors.
After completing the project, the team overcame three major obstacles
From discovering animal behavior, to revealing the molecular mechanisms and chemicals behind behavior, to testing its possible applications, this is a complete "story."
Wang Sibao told the surging news reporter that in the past seven years, he has heard many times that international counterparts are also overcoming this scientific research problem from different angles, and the team members are also worried about the research results being rushed, so they can only hurry up and concentrate on completing this project as soon as possible.
Wang Sibao told reporters that they have overcome at least three difficulties before they are ahead of their peers: First, they only chose the mosquito head as the experimental material, eliminating a lot of interference; the eyes of Anopheles mosquitoes contain pigments, resulting in the extraction of experimental materials red, affecting the subsequent gene chip detection, and the researchers innovatively removed the pigment and passed a pass; In addition, the team also innovated experimental instruments and platforms, such as the mosquito activity monitoring system designed to imitate the fruit fly monitoring system, and the institute's mass spectrometry experimental platform. The analysis of long-chain hydrocarbons containing 27 carbons was also completed.
The study found that the active substance heptadecane is a substance in the wax layer of the insect epidermis, synthesized by the desat1 gene. The gene is controlled by two circadian clock core genes, per and tim.
Genes per and tim related to light, temperature, and circadian clocks are stimulated, regulated, and expressed under such "days" as dusk, controlling Anopheles to fly and mate at dusk in summer.
In addition to injecting double-stranded RNA to inhibit the expression of male mosquito-related genes, after 2018, Wang Sibao's research team also joined hands with Professor Marcelo Jacobs-Lorena of Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Joel Vega-Rodriguez and the research team of Diabate Abdoulaye of the Sant Institute of Science in Burkina Faso, a landlocked country in West Africa, to conduct outdoor testing studies in Burkina Faso. The function and role of the circadian clock gene in regulating the marriage flight and mating behavior of Anopheles mosquitoes in the outdoor natural environment were confirmed.
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