Deep Sequencing revealed "Plant Like Transcripts" in mosquito Anopheles culicifacies: an Evolutionary Puzzle

Abstract

As adult female mosquitos salivary gland facilitate blood meal uptake and pathogen transmission e.g. Plasmodium, virus etc., a plethora of research has been focused to understand the mosquito-vertebrate-pathogen interactions. Despite the fact that mosquito spends longer time over nectar sugar source, the fundamental question how adult female salivary gland manages molecular and functional relationship during sugar vs. blood meal uptake remains unanswered. Currently, we are trying to understand these molecular relationships under dual feeding conditions in the salivary glands of the mosquito Anopheles culicifacies. During functional annotation of salivary transcriptome database, unexpectedly we discovered a cluster of salivary transcripts encoding plant like proteins. Our multiple experimental validations confirmed that Plant like transcripts (PLTs) are of mosquito origin and may encode functional proteins. A comprehensive molecular analysis of the PLTs and ongoing metagenomic analysis of salivary microbiome provide first evidence that how mosquito may have been benefited from its association with plant host and microbes. Future understanding of the underlying mechanism of the feeding associated molecular responses may provide new opportunity to control vector borne diseases.