IMPC: Role of ifit2 and stat2 in innate immune defence against arbovirus infection at mosquito bites

蚊子叮咬时会将疾病传播给人类，其中包括由病毒引起的感染。这些病毒每年感染数百万人，包括导致寨卡病毒、登革热和基孔肯雅热的病毒。大多数此类感染通常发生在热带地区，但气候变化和全球化意味着它们的范围正以惊人的速度蔓延。这些病毒有许多不同的类型，很难预测哪种病毒会导致下一次爆发。因此，开发和储存针对每种感染的药物具有挑战性。我们建议，重要的是确定这些感染的共同方面，我们可以针对药物，这样一种药物可以用于几种不同类型的病毒感染。所有这些感染都有一个共同点，就是在蚊子叮咬的地方接种疫苗。当蚊子叮咬你时，它会向你的皮肤中喷出唾液和病毒。免疫反应会对蚊子叮咬和皮肤上的病毒产生反应。不管蚊子传播的是哪种特定病毒，这些免疫反应的某些方面是相似的。重要的是，我们最近表明，皮肤在被咬时的免疫反应在保护你的身体免受这些病毒的侵害方面起着重要作用。在这个项目中，我们将研究两个重要的抗病毒基因（ifit2和stat2）如何帮助保护身体免受蚊子叮咬后皮肤上的病毒感染。最终的目标是利用这些知识来设计针对叮咬感染的常见方面的药物，这样它们就可以用于预防蚊子传播的许多不同病毒的感染。

Mosquitoes can pass disease to humans when they bite, which includes infections caused by viruses. These viruses infect many millions of people each year and include viruses that cause Zika, dengue and chikungunya. Most such infections are usually found in the tropics, but a changing climate and globalization means their range has spread at an alarming rate. There are many different types of these viruses and it is hard to predict which virus will cause the next outbreak. Hence, it is challenging to develop and stockpile medicines for each type of infection. We suggest that it is important to identify common aspects of these infections that we can target with medicines, so that a single medicine could be used for several different types of virus infection. Something that all these infections have in common, is the site of inoculation at mosquito bites. When a mosquito bites you, it spits out saliva and virus into your skin. Immune responses occur in response to both the mosquito bite and in response to the virus in the skin. Some aspects of these immune response are similar irrespective of the specific virus being spread by the mosquito. Importantly, we have recently shown that skin immune responses in the skin at the bite have an important role in defending your body against these viruses. In this project, we will work out how two important anti-viral genes (ifit2 and stat2) help defend the body against virus infection at mosquito bites in the skin. The eventual aim is to use this knowledge to design medicines that target common aspects of infection at the bite, so that they could be useful for preventing infection with many different viruses spread by mosquitoes.