Malaria disease is caused by Plasmodium parasite transmitted during Anopheles mosquito blood feeding. Mosquito blood feeding is facilitated by the pharmacologic and immunologic properties of salivary proteins which counteract and inhibit host reaction. These bioactive molecules can also strongly influence the salivary gland invasion by Plasmodium and their transmission during the blood feeding. It has been reported that salivary gland proteins could be influenced by age and infection status of the Anopheles vector. It has also recently been observed that salivary proteins composition can be influenced by insecticide resistance involved in mosquitoes. However, although salivary gland invasion constitutes an essential step of the Plasmodium life cycle in mosquito, the effects of insecticide resistance on the salivary protein composition, remained largely unexplored in wild populations of Anopheles mosquitoes. In this context and regarding the important threat that insecticide resistance in Anopheles mosquitoes constitutes for the progress toward the goal of controlling malaria disease, the present project aims, by conventional proteomic approach, to identify putative differential expressed annotated functional proteins between pyrethroid resistant and wild population of An. funestus mosquito and to characterize factors that could be involved in modifications of blood meal process or pathogen interaction in the insecticide resistant mosquitoes. Results expected in this project would provide relevant information on pattern of malaria transmission in the context of insecticide resistance. Furthermore, the identification of proteins differentially expressed in the salivary gland of resistant and susceptible mosquito, could allow on the development of a new useful marker for detecting insecticide resistant mosquito in natural condition. All this could lead to a reinforcement malaria disease control and elimination in endemic areas.
Funding Source: The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS); Duration: September 2018-August 2020
