Professor Texas A&M University College Station, Texas
Aedes aegypti is the major vector of dengue, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever viruses. A female Ae. aegypti can become infected with these viruses when it takes blood from infected host, which in turn will be transmitted to the next host. From the perspective of mosquitoes, blood feeding is necessary for reproduction, while from that of viruses, it is indispensable to be transmitted to the next host. The midgut plays a crucial role in responding the bloodmeal as the organ of the first, most direct and the longest interaction with the bloodmeal, which is also the first organ for the viruses to interact. Thus, we investigated the change in gene expression from start (pre-bloodfed state) to completion (72 h post blood feeding) at eleven time points across the bloodmeal digestion/egg maturation cycle. Illumina paired-end sequencing generated an average of 26 million fragments per sample with a total of > 2.3 billion reads for four biological replicates at each time point. We captured dynamic change in transcript expression in the midgut; more than 150 genes were differentially expressed within 1 h after blood feeding and all transcriptional differences returned to unfed status at 72 h after blood feeding. This study provides information that could be used for controlling or disrupting the mosquito’s digestion and/or reproduction, and serves as a new platform for further genetic and physiological study the effects of a blood meal on Ae. aegypti.
