Abstract
Anautogenous mosquito females require a meal of vertebrate blood in order to initiate the production of yolk protein precursors by the fat body. Yolk protein precursor gene expression is tightly repressed in a state-of-arrest before blood meal-related signals activate it and expression levels rise rapidly. The best understood example of yolk protein precursor gene regulation is the vitellogenin-A gene (vg) of the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti. Vg-A is regulated by (1) juvenile hormone signaling, (2) the ecdysone-signaling cascade, (3) the nutrient sensitive target-of-rapamycin signaling pathway, and (4) the insulin-like peptide (ILP) signaling pathway. A plethora of new studies have refined our understanding of the regulation of yolk protein precursor genes since the last review on this topic in 2005 (Attardo et al., 2005). This review summarizes the role of these four signaling pathways in the regulation of vg-A and focuses upon new findings regarding the interplay between them on an organismal level.
Highlights
MOSQUITO SPECIES USE TWO DIVERGENT REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGIES Mosquito species can be divided into two groups according to their reproductive strategy
Anautogenous mosquitoes require an obligatory blood meal to produce their first batch of eggs
The underlying reason for this is that the necessity for blood by anautogenous mosquitoes drives increased interaction between vector and host making them inherently better disease vectors
Summary
MOSQUITO SPECIES USE TWO DIVERGENT REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGIES Mosquito species can be divided into two groups according to their reproductive strategy. Autogenous mosquitoes do not require an initial blood meal and produce their first batch of eggs relying solely on nutrients accumulated during their larval phase. Subsequent egg batches are dependent upon the energy and nutritional building blocks derived from vertebrate blood. Anautogenous mosquitoes require an obligatory blood meal to produce their first batch of eggs. In these species, vitellogenesis is tightly repressed until blood meal-associated signals activate signaling cascades in involved organs and tissues. Most mosquito species fall into one of these two categories. Most of the human disease-transmitting species fall into the anautogenic category. The underlying reason for this is that the necessity for blood by anautogenous mosquitoes drives increased interaction between vector and host making them inherently better disease vectors. Autogeny vs. anautogeny is discussed in more detail in Attardo et al (2005)
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