Exploring the role of vitamin transport in insect models of disease vector biology

病媒传播的植物、牲畜和人类疾病是由以寄主动植物为食的节肢动物传播的传染病。这些疾病在世界范围内造成了巨大的经济、社会和健康成本。维生素等微量营养素对所有形式的动物生命都是必不可少的。然而，尽管只吃缺乏维生素的食物，许多无脊椎动物仍然茁壮成长。充足的营养是通过与可遗传微生物的互惠关系实现的，可遗传微生物提供了饮食中缺乏的微量营养素。这种专性营养共生在仅以缺乏维生素的脊椎动物血液或植物汁液为食的昆虫中最为显著，这些昆虫经常作为人/牲畜/植物疾病的媒介，对作物生产、食品生物安全、动物和人类健康产生巨大的全球经济影响。假设：维生素运输的分子机制是专性取食血液和树液的昆虫维持内共生的基础，因此许多无脊椎动物疾病媒介的成功。维生素供应是内共生关系和宿主昆虫成功的核心，但对昆虫中涉及维生素运输的分子机制知之甚少。微生物来源的维生素如何通过共生体膜传递到细菌细胞胞浆，或者通过细菌细胞质膜传递到昆虫血淋巴？通过分析食血昆虫和汁液昆虫的最新基因组/转录组信息，将确定候选维生素转运体并对其功能进行表征。了解内共生关系的分子基础将有助于阐明节肢动物生物学的基本方面，并为以转运蛋白生物学为核心的新型病媒控制策略的发展奠定基础。分子、细胞和工业生物技术

Vector-borne diseases of plants, livestock and humans are infections transmitted by arthropods feeding on host plants or animals. These diseases have huge worldwide economic, social and health costs.Micronutrients such as vitamins are essential for all forms of animal life. However, many invertebrates thrive despite feeding exclusively on diets deficient in vitamins. Adequate nutrition is achieved via mutualistic relationships with heritable microbes which provide the micronutrients lacking in diet. This obligate nutritional symbiosis is most striking in insects feeding exclusively on vitamin deficient vertebrate blood or plant sap, insects that often act as vectors of human/livestock/plant diseases and have huge global economic impacts on crop production, food biosecurity, animal and human health.Hypothesis: Molecular mechanisms of vitamin transport are fundamental for the persistence of endosymbiosis in obligate blood- and sap- feeding insects and, thus, the success of many invertebrate disease vectors.Vitamin provision is central to endosymbiotic relationships and host insect success, but little is known about the molecular mechanisms involved in vitamin transport in insects. How are microbe-derived vitamins delivered to the bacteriocyte cytosol across the symbiosomal membrane, or to insect haemolymph across the bacteriocyte plasma membrane? By analysing recent genomic/transcriptomic information from blood- and sap-feeding insects, candidate vitamin transporters will be identified and characterised functionally. Understanding the molecular basis of endosymbiotic relationships will shed light on a fundamental aspect of arthropod biology and underpin the development of novel disease vector control strategies centred on transporter biology.Molecules, Cells and Industrial Biotechnology