The bioterrorists of the insect world, mosquitoes can transmit a range of deadly diseases after a blood meal. But how do they carry dangerous pathogens like malaria and yellow fever without becoming infected themselves?
Now Julián Hillyer from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and colleagues are discovering that mosquitoes use a two-pronged trick to intercept infectious agents during their journey from their gut to their salivary glands, from where the pathogens are transmitted to other animals. When a disease passes through a mosquito's heart, it must resist the rapid-flowing bloodstream while, at the same time, immune cells surround the area and launch their attack.
In this video, you can watch a mosquito fight off E. coli. The initial view reveals the insect's peculiar heart, which mostly pumps blood in one direction, towards the head. Immune cells are triggered as the intruding pathogen passes through the organ, usually eliminating most of the disease and keeping the mosquito healthy.
This new understanding of the mosquito immune system could help develop new ways of controlling the spread of disease. "Perhaps we can find ways to augment those immune responses," says Hillyer, suggesting that the disease-filtering process could be improved to completely prevent mosquitoes from transmitting pathogens.
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