Indiana University School of Medicine, Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics, South Bend, IN, USA.
The University of Notre Dame Eck Institute for Global Health, Notre Dame, IN, USA.
Sci Rep. 2017 Oct 16;7(1):13223. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-13566-y.
New mosquito control strategies are vitally needed to address established arthropod-borne infectious diseases such as dengue and yellow fever and emerging diseases such as Zika and chikungunya, all of which are transmitted by the disease vector mosquito Aedes aegypti. In this investigation, Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker's yeast) was engineered to produce short hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) corresponding to the Aedes aegypti orthologs of fasciculation and elongation protein zeta 2 (fez2) and leukocyte receptor cluster (lrc) member, two genes identified in a recent screen for A. aegypti larval lethal genes. Feeding A. aegypti with the engineered yeasts resulted in silenced target gene expression, disrupted neural development, and highly significant larval mortality. Larvicidal activities were retained following heat inactivation and drying of the yeast into tabular formulations that induced >95% mortality and were found to attract adult females to oviposit. These ready-to-use inactivated yeast interfering RNA tablets may one day facilitate the seamless integration of this new class of lure-and-kill species-specific biorational mosquito larvicides into integrated mosquito control programs.
需要新的蚊虫控制策略来应对已建立的节肢动物传播传染病，如登革热和黄热病，以及新兴疾病，如寨卡和基孔肯雅热，所有这些疾病都是由病媒蚊虫埃及伊蚊传播的。在这项研究中，酿酒酵母（面包酵母）被工程改造以产生短发夹 RNA（shRNA），这些 shRNA 对应埃及伊蚊 fasciculation 和 elongation protein zeta 2（fez2）和白细胞受体簇（lrc）成员的直系同源物，这两个基因是在最近筛选埃及伊蚊幼虫致死基因中发现的。用工程酵母喂养埃及伊蚊导致靶基因表达沉默、神经发育中断和幼虫死亡率显著升高。酵母经热处理失活并干燥成平板制剂后仍保留杀幼虫活性，该平板制剂能诱导 95%以上的死亡率，并发现能吸引雌性成虫产卵。这些即用型失活酵母干扰 RNA 片剂有朝一日可能会促进将这种新型诱捕和杀死物种特异性生物合理性蚊虫幼虫剂无缝整合到综合蚊虫控制计划中。
