A potential new way to combat malaria by a little tweaking in male mosquitoes' 'mating plug' could prevent mosquitoes from reproducing,says a new study.
A potential new way to combat malaria by a little tweaking in male mosquitoes' 'mating plug' could prevent mosquitoes from reproducing,says a new study.
Scientists have said that preventing male mosquitoes from sealing their sperm inside females with a 'mating plug' could stop the spread of malaria.
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These mosquitoes mate only once in their lifetime, which means that disrupting the reproductive process offers a good way of dramatically reducing populations of them in Africa.
At the time of mating, the male transfers sperm to the female and then afterwards transfers a coagulated mass of proteins and seminal fluids known as a mating plug.
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Led by researchers at Imperial College London, the study has shown for the first time that the mating plug is essential for ensuring that sperm is correctly retained in the female's sperm storage organ, from where she can fertilise eggs over the course of her lifetime.
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In Imperial's mosquito labs, the scientists showed it was possible to prevent the formation of the plug in males, and that this stopped them successfully reproducing with females.
Mosquitoes can Help in the Fight Against Malaria
The mosquitoes that transmit malaria can actually help scientists find potential new ways to fight this disease, a new study has revealed.
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"Removing or interfering with the mating plug renders copulation ineffective. This discovery could be used to develop new ways of controlling populations of An. gambiae mosquitoes, to limit the spread of malaria," she added.
The researchers examined the composition of the protein-rich mating plug and discovered that it is formed when an enzyme called Transglutaminase interacts with other proteins in the male mosquito's seminal fluid.
The interaction causes the seminal fluids to coagulate into a gelatinous solid mass.
On knocking out this enzyme in male mosquitoes in the lab, the fluids failed to coagulate and form the plug.
Besides, when these males, lacking the key protein and therefore the plug, mated with females, reproduction was not successful.
"If in the future we can develop an inhibitor that prevents the coagulating enzyme doing its job inside male An. gambiae mosquitoes in such a way that can be deployed easily in the field - for example in the form of a spray as it is done with insecticides - then we could effectively induce sterility in female mosquitoes in the wild. This could provide a new way of limiting the population of this species of mosquito, and could be one more weapon in the arsenal against malaria," concluded Catteruccia.
The study has been published in PLoS Biology.
Source-ANI
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