Malaria resistant mosquitoes
AFP
01 / 10 / 2009 | Updated: 20: 00 | Comments 1 | Add to my selection
Scientists have identified a variation on a gene that enhances the ability of mosquitoes to resist malaria, according to a study to be published in the American journal Science. Researchers from Inserm Unit 963 in Strasbourg and EMBL from Heidelberg (Germany) have isolated a variation of a gene, an allele, which allows the mosquito to resist infection.
"We can now explain why, in a population of mosquitoes, some are more resistant to malaria than others", declared Elena Levashina, researcher at Inserm Unit 963. To show the presence of the allele in question, l The team has adapted a method developed by EMBL to study yeasts, which makes it possible to carry out a comparative study on the alleles of genes and no longer on a complete region of DNA, which can carry hundreds of genes.
The next step is to diagnose the natural mosquito population, to see how often the malaria resistant variation in the gene appears. "We could thus see whether mosquitoes in a particular region are more or less likely to carry the disease," explains Elena Levashina. It would then be possible to use insecticides in certain areas where mosquitoes are not very resistant, or to breed mosquitoes carrying the resistant variation, in order to protect human populations from infection. Malaria kills more than a million people a year, especially children under five and pregnant women, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
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