{"id":106519,"date":"2020-05-04T13:22:34","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T20:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/a-microsporidian-impairs-plasmodium-falciparum-transmission-in-anopheles-arabiensis-mosquitoes"},"modified":"2020-05-04T13:22:34","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T20:22:34","slug":"a-microsporidian-impairs-plasmodium-falciparum-transmission-in-anopheles-arabiensis-mosquitoes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/a-microsporidian-impairs-plasmodium-falciparum-transmission-in-anopheles-arabiensis-mosquitoes","title":{"rendered":"A microsporidian impairs Plasmodium falciparum transmission in Anopheles arabiensis mosquitoes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/a-microsporidian-impairs-plasmodium-falciparum-transmission-in-anopheles-arabiensis-mosquitoes.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A microbe found in mosquitoes that appears to block malaria could be used to control spread of the disease in humans, according to researchers in Kenya and Britain.<\/p>\n<p>In findings published Monday by the journal <i><i>Nature<\/i> Communications<\/i>, the authors describes finding the microbe, <i>Microsporidia MB<\/i>, in mosquitoes around Lake Victoria in Africa \u2014 and that they could not find a single mosquito with the microbe that also had the malaria parasite.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>A possible malaria control approach involves the dissemination in mosquitoes of inherited symbiotic microbes to block <i><i>Plasmodium<\/i> transmission<\/i>. However, in the <i><i>Anopheles<\/i> gambiae<\/i> complex, the primary African vectors of malaria, there are limited reports of inherited symbionts that impair transmission. We show that a vertically transmitted microsporidian symbiont (<i>Microsporidia MB<\/i>) in the <i>An. gambiae<\/i> complex can impair <i><i>Plasmodium<\/i> transmission<\/i>. <i>Microsporidia MB<\/i> is present at moderate prevalence in geographically dispersed populations of <i>An. arabiensis<\/i> in Kenya, localized to the mosquito midgut and ovaries, and is not associated with significant reductions in adult host fecundity or survival. Field-collected <i><i>Microsporidia MB<\/i> infected<\/i> <i>An. arabiensis<\/i> tested negative for <i>P. falciparum<\/i> gametocytes and, on experimental infection with <i>P. falciparum<\/i>, sporozoites aren\u2019t detected in <i><i>Microsporidia MB<\/i> infected<\/i> mosquitoes. As a microbe that impairs <i><i>Plasmodium<\/i> transmission<\/i> that is non-virulent and vertically transmitted, <i>Microsporidia MB<\/i> could be investigated as a strategy to limit malaria transmission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A microbe found in mosquitoes that appears to block malaria could be used to control spread of the disease in humans, according to researchers in Kenya and Britain. In findings published Monday by the journal Nature Communications, the authors describes finding the microbe, Microsporidia MB, in mosquitoes around Lake Victoria in Africa \u2014 and that [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}