Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. E-mail: mfw5 cornell. E-mail: lch27 cornell. E-mail: sdorus syr. Author contributions: E. An expanded understanding of mosquito reproductive biology may assist efforts to control wild mosquito populations by manipulating reproduction.
Given that molecular mechanisms of seminal fluid and sperm function are poorly understood, we have catalogued proteins that compose the ejaculate in Aedes aegypti ,βthe vector of dengue, Zika, and other viruses. The sperm and seminal fluid proteomes characterized herein represent a valuable tool for investigations of mosquito biology and the development of molecular targets by which mosquito populations may be suppressed.
The yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti, , transmits several viruses causative of serious diseases, including dengue, Zika, and chikungunya. Some proposed efforts to control this vector involve manipulating reproduction to suppress wild populations or to replace them with disease-resistant mosquitoes.
The design of such strategies requires an intimate knowledge of reproductive processes, yet our basic understanding of reproductive genetics in this vector remains largely incomplete. To accelerate future investigations, we have comprehensively catalogued sperm and seminal fluid proteins SFPs transferred to females in the ejaculate using tandem mass spectrometry.
By excluding female-derived proteins using an isotopic labeling approach, we identified sperm proteins and SFPs. Functional composition analysis revealed parallels with known aspects of sperm biology and SFP function in other insects.
