Tuesday, October 03, 2023

Microbe stops mosquitoes from harboring malaria parasite

Good news! That has the potential to reduce blood suckers to a nuisance. 

But why not eradicate these bloodsuckers once and for all unless there are very good reasons not to do it. I am pro extinction as far as these bloodsuckers are concerned!

"Malaria kills more than half a million people every year, most of them children under age 5. ... Now, researchers ... found ... a naturally occurring bacterium that, when fed to mosquitoes, halts the development of the malaria parasite in the insects’ guts.
The findings offer a complement to existing malaria prevention methods ... The approach “has great potential to be implemented” in areas where malaria is endemic ...
The bacterium in the new study ... inhibits the malaria parasite without any genetic tinkering by humans.  ..."

From the editor's note and the abstract:
"Editor’s summary
Malaria mosquitoes can act as hosts to several microorganisms, including commensal bacterial species. Huang et al. noticed that some laboratory colonies of anopheline mosquitoes were incapable of transmitting malaria parasites. These insects also harbored a few cells of a bacterium called Delftia tsuruhatensis TC1, which produces a toxic alkaloid called harmane. Bacteria-produced harmane inhibited the development of female Plasmodium parasite gametes in the mosquito gut. Harmane was found to be a contact poison that could also cross the mosquito cuticle to kill developing malaria parasites. Contained field trials in Burkina Faso, coupled with modeling studies, showed that the bacterium has the potential to be deployed in mosquito breeding sites as a component of malaria control. ...
Abstract
Malaria control demands the development of a wide range of complementary strategies. We describe the properties of a naturally occurring, non–genetically modified symbiotic bacterium, Delftia tsuruhatensis TC1, which was isolated from mosquitoes incapable of sustaining the development of Plasmodium falciparum parasites. D. tsuruhatensis TC1 inhibits early stages of Plasmodium development and subsequent transmission by the Anopheles mosquito through secretion of a small-molecule inhibitor. We have identified this inhibitor to be the hydrophobic molecule harmane. We also found that, on mosquito contact, harmane penetrates the cuticle, inhibiting Plasmodium development. D. tsuruhatensis TC1 stably populates the mosquito gut, does not impose a fitness cost on the mosquito, and inhibits Plasmodium development for the mosquito’s life. Contained field studies in Burkina Faso and modeling showed that D. tsuruhatensis TC1 has the potential to complement mosquito-targeted malaria transmission control."

Microbe stops mosquitoes from harboring malaria parasite | Science | AAAS

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