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Article
Enterobacter-Activated Mosquito Immune Responses to Plasmodium Involve Activation of SRPN6 in Anopheles stephensi
PLoS One (2013)
  • Ryan C. Smith, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
  • Abraham G. Eappen, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
  • Marcelo Jacobs-Lorena, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Abstract

Successful development of Plasmodium in the mosquito is essential for the transmission of malaria. A major bottleneck in parasite numbers occurs during midgut invasion, partly as a consequence of the complex interactions between the endogenous microbiota and the mosquito immune response. We previously identified SRPN6 as an immune component which restricts Plasmodium berghei development in the mosquito. Here we demonstrate that SRPN6 is differentially activated by bacteria in Anopheles stephensi, but only when bacteria exposure occurs on the lumenal surface of the midgut epithelium. Our data indicate that AsSRPN6 is strongly induced following exposure to Enterobacter cloacae, a common component of the mosquito midgut microbiota. We conclude that AsSRPN6 is a vital component of the E. cloacae-mediated immune response that restricts Plasmodium development in the mosquito An. stephensi.

Keywords
  • Plasmodium. malaria,
  • endogenous microbiota,
  • insect proteins
Disciplines
Publication Date
May, 2013
Publisher Statement
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation Information
Ryan C. Smith, Abraham G. Eappen and Marcelo Jacobs-Lorena. "Enterobacter-Activated Mosquito Immune Responses to Plasmodium Involve Activation of SRPN6 in Anopheles stephensi" PLoS One Vol. 8 Iss. 5 (2013)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/ryan_smith1/5/