Transgenic Mosquitoes Expressing a Phospholipase A2 Gene Have a Fitness Advantage When Fed Plasmodium falciparum-Infected Blood
Figure 4
mPLA2-transgenic females are more fecund than their non-transgenic counterparts when fed Plasmodium-infected blood.
Transgenic An. stephensi mPLA2 lines obtained from colony cages and wild type An. stephensi were fed non-infected human blood (control) or blood containing P. falciparum gametocytes and three days post-blood meal, the number of eggs oviposited by individual females was counted. The interaction line chart shows the mean number of eggs oviposited per female with error bars representing the SEM. Data from two independent experiments were pooled and analyzed with a two-way ANOVA and Bonferroni post-test. The total number of female mosquitoes analyzed for each experimental condition is as follows: non-infected [WT = 39, AP (-) = 39, AP (+) = 38] and P. falciparum-infected [WT = 48, AP (-) = 43, AP (+) = 47]. Oviposited egg numbers were not significantly different when mosquitoes were fed non-infected blood, but the AP (-) and AP (+) transgenic lines produced significantly more eggs than wild type mosquitoes when fed infectious P. falciparum blood (P<0.05 and P<0.01 respectively).
