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Background  The pathogens transmitted by mosquitoes to humans and animals cause several emerging and resurgent infectious diseases. Increasing insecticide resistance requires rational action to control the target vector population. Chitin is indispensable for insect growth and development and absent from vertebrates and higher plants. Chitin synthase A (CHSA) is a crucial enzyme in chitin synthesis; therefore, identifying and characterizing how CHSA determines chitin content may contribute to the development of novel vector control strategies.    Results  The injection of small interfering RNA targeting  CHSA  (siCHSA) to knockdown  CHSA  transcripts in larval, pupal and adult stages of  Culex pipiens pallens  resulted in the appearance of different lethal phenotypes. When larval and pupal stages were injected with siCHSA,  CHSA  knockdown prevented larval molting, pupation and adult eclosion, and affected the production of chitin and chitin degradation, which resulted in an ecdysis defect phenotype of mosquitoes. When siCHSA was injected into mosquitoes in the adult stage,  CHSA  knockdown also affected the laminar organization of the mesoderm and the formation of pseudo-orthogonal patterns of the large fibers of the endoderm.    Conclusion  We provide a systematic and comprehensive description of the effects of  CHSA  on morphogenesis and metamorphosis. The results show that CHSA not only affects chitin synthesis during molting, but also might be involved in chitin degradation. Our results further show that CHSA is important for the structural integrity of the adult mosquito cuticle.    Graphic abstractSupplementary Information  The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13071-021-04741-2.

Physiological characterization of chitin synthase A responsible for the biosynthesis of cuticle chitin in Culex pipiens pallens (Diptera: Culicidae)