Effects of temperature on mosquito immunity and vector competence: do some like i

描述(由申请人提供)：人们对了解蚊子先天免疫的机制和功能很感兴趣，最近在这一领域的研究确定了似乎影响蚊子传播疟疾能力的重要免疫基因和代谢途径。然而，几乎所有这样的研究都是在高度受控的实验室环境下进行的，这与蚊子和疟原虫在野外经历的情况不同。疟疾的自然传播发生在15-35摄氏度的温度范围内，有可能在时间和空间尺度上有相当大的差异。我们希望验证温度对蚊子免疫功能和媒介能力有显著影响的假设，并探索在一组受控条件下获得的见解是否足以理解蚊子抵抗力/耐受性在自然界中的变化。我们认为，蚊子的免疫功能应该受到环境温度的影响，因为蚊子是小身体和冷血动物。在其他昆虫-寄生虫系统中，温度对寄生虫的发育和总的寄主抗性有深远的影响。目前尚不清楚蚊子和疟疾是否会产生这种影响，如果是的话，这些影响是由于温度对寄生虫的影响、对宿主免疫力的影响，还是两者的某种组合。如果温度确实影响蚊子的免疫功能，那么温度可能是一个强有力的环境参数，描述了自然媒介种群中蚊子抵抗力/耐受性的变化，也可能解释了对不同疟原虫(特别是一些啮齿动物疟疾寄生虫和恶性疟原虫)免疫反应的差异。更根本的是，如果蚊子的免疫反应表现出热敏感性，目前在标准实验室条件下概述免疫学机制的方法不足以理解自然或转基因媒介的能力。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): There is considerable interest in understanding the mechanisms and function of mosquito innate immunity, with recent research in this area identifying important immune genes and metabolic pathways that appear to influence the ability of mosquitoes to transmit malaria. However nearly all such studies have been conducted under highly controlled lab environments, which is not what mosquitoes and Plasmodium parasites experience in the field. Natural malaria transmission occurs across a temperature range of 15-35 0 C, with the potential for considerable variation in conditions across temporal and spatial scales. We wish to test the hypothesis that temperature has significant impacts on mosquito immune function and vector competence, and to explore whether the insights gained under one set of controlled conditions are sufficient to understand variation in mosquito resistance/refractoriness in nature. We argue that mosquito immune function should be affected by environmental temperature because mosquitoes are small-bodied and cold-blooded. In other insect-parasite systems temperature has profound effects on parasite development and overall host resistance. Whether such effects occur with mosquitoes and malaria and if so, whether these effects are due to impacts of temperature on the parasite, on host immunity, or some combination of both, remains unclear. If temperature does affect mosquito immune function, then temperature may be a potent environmental parameter describing variation in mosquito resistance / refractoriness in natural vector populations and might also explain the disparities in immune responses to different Plasmodium parasites (in particular between some rodent malaria parasites and P. falciparum). More fundamentally, if mosquito immune response exhibits thermal sensitivity, the current approach of outlining immunological mechanism under standard lab conditions is insufficient for understanding natural or transgenic vector competence.