Unraveling dual feeding associated molecular complexity of salivary glands in the mosquito Anopheles culicifacies

• Main Authors: Punita Sharma, Swati Sharma, Ashwani Kumar Mishra, Tina Thomas, Tanwee Das De, Suman Lata Rohilla, Namita Singh, Kailash C. Pandey, Neena Valecha, Rajnikant Dixit
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Company of Biologists 2015-08-01
• Series: Biology Open
• Subjects: Malaria; Mosquito; Salivary gland; Sugar and blood feeding; Gene expression
• Online Access: http://bio.biologists.org/content/4/8/1002

Mosquito salivary glands are well known to facilitate meal acquisition, however the fundamental question on how adult female salivary gland manages molecular responses during sugar versus blood meal uptake remains unanswered. To investigate these responses, we analyzed a total of 58.5 million raw reads generated from two independent RNAseq libraries of the salivary glands collected from 3–4 day-old sugar and blood fed Anopheles culicifacies mosquitoes. Comprehensive functional annotation analysis of 10,931 contigs unraveled that salivary glands may encode diverse nature of proteins in response to distinct physiological feeding status. Digital gene expression analysis and PCR validation indicated that first blood meal significantly alters the molecular architecture of the salivary glands. Comparative microscopic analysis also revealed that first blood meal uptake not only causes an alteration of at least 12–22% of morphological features of the salivary glands but also results in cellular changes e.g. apoptosis, confirming together that adult female salivary glands are specialized organs to manage meal specific responses. Unraveling the underlying mechanism of mosquito salivary gene expression, controlling dual feeding associated responses may provide a new opportunity to control vector borne diseases.