A genetic resource for Anopheles immunity research

描述(申请人提供)：昆虫传播的疾病继续给世界上很大一部分人口带来负担。了解传播引起这些疾病的病原体的昆虫的基本生物学一直是并将继续是制定有效的控制战略的关键。技术进步经常提供新的机会来扩大我们对基础生物学的理解。该项目将创建一个由人类斯氏按蚊转基因品系组成的遗传资源，该转基因品系在血细胞中特异地表达转录因子Gal4。这些品系的收集将成为研究蚊子细胞免疫系统的有价值的工具，蚊子的细胞免疫系统由负责包裹和吞噬以及合成抗菌蛋白的血细胞组成。与研究较多的体液免疫系统相比，人们对蚊子免疫系统的这方面了解较少，尽管人们越来越认识到，体液免疫系统是这些昆虫中微生物感染的重要媒介。这些在血细胞中特异表达Gal4的基因将被用来标记体内的血细胞，以便于在各种生理条件下显示它们，操纵血细胞的基因表达(沉默、过度表达、错误表达)，以评估血细胞生长、发育和/或功能的遗传基础，并表达细胞死亡或细胞毒基因以特异性地去除血细胞或血细胞亚群，以评估其对各种生理过程的影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Insect vector-borne diseases continue to burden a large fraction of the world's population. Understanding the basic biology of the insects responsible for transmitting the pathogens that cause these diseases has been and will continue to be essential for the development of effective strategies of control. Technological advances often provide novel opportunities to enlarge our understanding of basic biology. This project will result in the creation of a genetic resource consisting of transgenic lines of the human malaria mosquito Anopheles stephensi expressing the transcription factor Gal4 specifically in hemocytes. This collection of lines will serve as a valuable tool for the investigation of the cellular immune system in mosquitoes, which consists of hemocytes that are responsible for encapsulation and phagocytosis as well as synthesis of antimicrobial proteins. This aspect of the mosquito's immune system is less well understood than the more-well-studied humoral immune system although there has been growing realization that it is an important mediator of microbial infections in these insects. This collection of lines expressing Gal4 specifically in hemocytes will be used subsequently to label hemocytes in vivo to facilitate their visualization under a variety of physiological conditions, to manipulate hemocyte gene expression (silencing, overexpression, mis-expression) to assess the genetic basis of hemocyte growth, development and/or function and to express cell-death or cytotoxic genes to specifically ablate hemocytes or subpopulations of hemocytes to assess the impact on various physiological processes.