Nutritional and endocrine control of mosquito egg development.

描述（由申请人提供）：我的职业目标是在动物生理学或综合生物学领域获得教职，这两个领域都需要广泛的生物学培训。病媒管理需要一系列工具来多层次地研究蚊子，以便我们更深入地了解蚊子在其环境中的功能，从而找到控制疾病昆虫病媒的新方法。我在有机生物学、生态学和生物化学方面的背景将有助于实现这一目标。目前，我的研究开始描述蚊子卵发育的分子内分泌学，初步结果支持RSDA应用。我的研究计划需要描述女性卵子生产的激素和营养控制。我未来的研究将试图解释的中心概念是组织如何将营养水平的信息传递给神经系统，然后协调蚊子卵子成熟的激素产生。这些关键的调控过程可以作为媒介控制方法的干扰目标。由于血液消化本身是一个复杂的生理过程，我使用了一种“自体”蚊子，即黄足黄足蚊，它不需要血餐，从而从我的实验中去除了血液消化的因素。在我的研究目标的进展中，我已经确定了这种蚊子的卵巢和脂肪体中可能参与生殖调节的基因组。在这个应用中，我建议通过识别女性大脑中的基因来扩展我对在监测和调节卵子发生中起关键作用的组织的检查。然后，我将描述组织特异性基因，预计将参与蚊子产卵。候选基因和蛋白质将进行定量PCR和免疫测定。三种参与调节卵子发育的肽激素也将在卵子发生过程中进行表征，并进行生物测定以证实观察到的变化。从这些研究中，我希望描述蚊子中编码调节卵发育所需产物的已知和新基因集。冈比亚按蚊和埃及伊蚊的基因组数据库是可用的，为我提供了信息，以确定参与这些相同过程的基因。这些基因的鉴定和表征将扩大我们对吸血和蚊子媒介中病原体传播的理解。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): My career goal is to obtain a faculty position in the field of animal physiology or integrative biology, both fields of which require broad training in biology. Vector management requires an array of tools to study mosquitoes at multiple levels, so that we gain a deeper understanding of how mosquitoes function in their environment, leading to novel ways of controlling insect vectors of disease. My background in organismal biology, ecology, and biochemistry will help reach this goal. Currently, my research is beginning to characterize the molecular endocrinology of mosquito egg development, preliminary results of which support this RSDA application. My research program entails characterizing the hormonal and nutritional control of female egg production. The central concept that my future studies will seek to explain is how tissues convey information about nutrient levels to the nervous system that then coordinates hormone production for egg maturation in mosquitoes. These key regulatory processes can serve as targets for disruption as an approach for vector control. Because blood digestion itself is a complex physiological process, I use a species of "autogenous" mosquito, Ochlerotatus atropalpus, which does not require a blood meal, thus removing the factor of blood digestion from my experiments. In progress toward my reseach goals, I have identified sets of genes in ovaries and fat body of this mosquito that may be involved in the regulation of reproduction. In this application, I propose to extend my examination of tissues that play a key role in monitoring and regulating oogenesis by identifying genes in female brains. I will then characterize tissue-specific genes expected to be involved in mosquito egg production. Candidate genes and proteins will be subjected to quantitative PCR and immunoassays. Three peptide hormones involved in regulating egg development will also be characterized over the course of oogenesis and subjected to bioassays to substantiate the observed changes. From these studies, I expect to characterize sets of known and new genes in mosquitoes that encode products required to regulate egg development. Genomic databases are available for the vectors Anopheles gambiae and Aedes aegypti, giving me information to mine for the identification of genes involved in these same processes. Identification and characterization of these genes should expand our understanding of hematophagy and pathogen transmission in mosquito vectors.