{"id":315936,"date":"2025-08-04T01:11:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T01:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/315936\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T01:11:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T01:11:18","slug":"stealth-genetic-switch-in-mosquitoes-halts-malaria-spread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/315936\/","title":{"rendered":"Stealth Genetic Switch in Mosquitoes Halts Malaria Spread"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t  <img class=\"lozad figure-img img-fluid img-fit-cover mx-auto\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Bier-Cover-Illustration-3-400-7-17-25.jpg\" alt=\"Mosquito larvae\" width=\"705\" height=\"470\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Genetically modified mosquito larvae express fluorescent markers of the FREP1 gene \u2014 RFP (pink), GFP (blue) or both (yellow) \u2014 to indicate whether they spread or block infection from malarial parasites. Credit: Zhiqian Li, Bier Lab, UC San Diego<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn that prior study, we created a self-eliminating drive that converts a population of fruit flies from being resistant to insecticides back to its native insecticide-susceptible state. Then that genetic cassette just disappears, leaving only a re-wilded insect population,\u201d said Bier. \u201cA similar phantom drive system could convert mosquito populations to carrying the parasite-resistant FREP1Q variant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While the researchers demonstrated the effectiveness of the L224-to-Q224 switch, they don\u2019t yet fully grasp why this change works so efficiently. Ongoing research into how the Q224 amino acid blocks the parasite\u2019s infection transit route is underway.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis breakthrough is the result of seamless teamwork and innovation across institutions,\u201d said Dimopoulos. \u201cTogether, we\u2019ve harnessed nature\u2019s own genetic tools to turn mosquitoes into allies against malaria.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The authors of the study were: Zhiqian Li, Yuemei Dong, Lang You, Rodrigo M. Corder, Jemariz Arzobal, Audrey Yeun, Lei Yang, John M. Marshall,<b> <\/b>George Dimopoulos and Ethan Bier.<\/p>\n<p>Funding for the research was provided by: the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-036579, INV-043645, INV-017683 and INV-078535); the National Institutes of Health (grants R01GM117321, R01GM144608, R01AI162911, R01AI170692, R01AI158615 and R01AI143698); Howard Hughes Medical Institute (grant 90101319); Bloomberg Philanthropies; and Open Philanthropy (grant GV673605686).<\/p>\n<p>Competing interest disclosure: Bier has equity interest in two companies he co-founded: Agragene Inc. and Synbal Inc., which may potentially benefit from the research results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Genetically modified mosquito larvae express fluorescent markers of the FREP1 gene \u2014 RFP (pink), GFP (blue) or both&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3846],"tags":[267,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-315936","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-genetics","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114967837745148294","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}