Abstract
The fat body is considered the insect analog of vertebrate liver and fat tissue. In mosquitoes, a blood meal triggers a series of processes in the fat body that culminate in vitellogenesis, the process of yolk formation. Lipids are stored in the fat body in specialized organelles called lipid droplets that change in size depending on the nutritional and metabolic status of the insect. We surveyed lipid droplets in female Aedes aegypti fat body during a reproductive cycle using confocal microscopy and analyzed the dynamic changes in the fat body lipidome during this process using LC/MS. We found that lipid droplets underwent dynamic changes in volume after the mosquito took a blood meal. The lipid composition found in the fat body is quite complex with 117 distinct lipids that fall into 19 classes and sublcasses. Our results demonstrate that the lipid composition of the fat body is complex as most lipid classes underwent significant changes over the course of the vitellogenic cycle. This study lays the foundation for identifying unknown biochemical pathways active in the mosquito fat body, that are high-value targets for the development of novel mosquito control strategies.
Highlights
Vitellogenesis in an autogenous mosquitoes depends on vertebrate blood
To place any observed changes more accurately in lipid droplet area within the larger context of physiological changes occurring in the vitellogenic cycle we show typical example images of mosquito midguts and ovaries taken at the same time point (Figure 1A upper two rows)
The results of this study demonstrate that lipid metabolism in the fat body of female Ae. aegypti during vitellogenesis is an extremely dynamic process
Summary
Vitellogenesis in an autogenous mosquitoes depends on vertebrate blood. Female mosquitoes must produce large amounts of yolk proteins to provide the amino acid supply for the developing embryos. The necessary proteins for this process are provided by the vertebrate blood ingested when a female mosquito takes a blood meal. Proteins from the ingested blood meal are digested in the mid-gut and the amino acids along with lipids and carbohydrates are absorbed and transported to the fat body. In the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti, a large portion of fat body tissue can be found lining the abdominal cuticle. In the fat body, digested amino acids are either metabolized or polymerized into yolk precursor proteins (YPPs) that are exported to the developing oocytes in the ovaries [1]
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