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非常感兴趣，最近在这一领域的研究发现了重要的免疫基因和代谢途径，这些基因和代谢途径似乎影响蚊子传播疟疾的能力。然而，几乎所有这类研究都是在高度控制的实验室环境下进行的，这与蚊子和疟原虫在野外的经历不同。疟疾自然传播发生在15-35℃的温度范围内，在时间和空间尺度上可能存在相当大的差异。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自然界中蚊子的抗性/难耐性变化。我们认为蚊子的免疫功能可能受到环境温度的影响，因为蚊子是小型的冷血动物。在其他昆虫-寄生虫系统中，温度对寄生虫的发育和宿主的整体抗性有深远的影响。这种影响是否发生在蚊子和疟疾身上，如果是这样，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，还是两者的某种结合，目前还不清楚。如果温度确实影响蚊子的免疫功能，那么温度可能是描述自然媒介种群中蚊子抗性/难耐性变化的有效环境参数，也可能解释对不同疟原虫（特别是某些啮齿动物疟疾寄生虫和恶性疟原虫）免疫反应的差异。更重要的是，如果蚊子的免疫反应表现出热敏性，那么目前在标准实验室条件下概述免疫机制的方法不足以理解自然或转基因载体的能力。

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.