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Innate immunity against malaria parasites in Anopheles gambiae
Author(s) -
Chen Yang,
Weng ZhiHui,
Zheng Liangbiao
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
insect science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.991
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1744-7917
pISSN - 1672-9609
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-7917.2008.00186.x
Subject(s) - malaria , anopheles gambiae , biology , innate immune system , immunity , effector , vector (molecular biology) , anopheles , plasmodium falciparum , plasmodium (life cycle) , immunology , virology , gene , parasite hosting , genetics , immune system , world wide web , computer science , recombinant dna
Malaria continues to exert a huge toll in the world today, causing approximately 400 million cases and killing between 1‐2 million people annually. Most of the malaria burden is borne by countries in Africa. For this reason, the major vector for malaria in this continent, Anopheles gambiae , is under intense study. With the completion of the draft sequence of this important vector, efforts are underway to develop novel control strategies. One promising area is to harness the power of the innate immunity of this mosquito species to block the transmission of the malaria parasites. Recent studies have demonstrated that Toll and Imd signaling pathways and other immunity‐related genes (encoding proteins possibly function in recognition or as effector molecules) play significant roles in two different arms of innate immunity: level of infection intensity and melanization of Plasmodium oocysts. The challenges in the future are to understand how the functions of these different genes are coordinated in defense against malaria parasites, and if different arms of innate immunity are cross–regulated or coordinated.