Control of Aedes aegypti (L.) (Diptera: Culicidae) populations is vital
for reducing the transmission of several pervasive human diseases. The success of new
vector control technologies will be influenced by the fitness of laboratory-reared
transgenic males. However, there has been relatively little published data on how rearing
practices influence male fitness in Aedes mosquitoes. In the laboratory,
the effect of larval food availability on adult male fitness was tested, using a range of
different fitness measures. Larval food availability was demonstrated to be positively
correlated with adult body size. Larger males survived longer and exhibited greater
swarming activity. As a consequence, larger males may have more mating opportunities in
the wild. However, we also found that within a swarm larger males did not have an
increased likelihood of copulating with a female. The outcome of the mating competition
experiments depended on the methodology used to mark the males. These results show that
fitness assessment can vary depending on the measure analyzed, and the methodology used to
determine it. Continued investigation into these fitness measures and methodologies, and
critically, their utility for predicting male performance in the field, will increase the
efficiency of vector control programs.
Oomycetes were recently discovered as natural pathogens of Caenorhabditis elegans and pathogen recognition alone was shown to be sufficient to activate a protective transcriptional program in the host characterised by the expression of multiple chitinase-like (chil) genes. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying oomycete recognition in animals remain fully unknown. We performed here a forward genetic screen to uncover regulators of chil gene induction and found several independent loss-of-function alleles of old-1 and flor-1, which encode receptor tyrosine kinases belonging to the C. elegans-specific KIN-16 family. We present evidence that OLD-1 is an active kinase mounting the immune response, and FLOR-1 a pseudokinase that is also required for the response and regulates the distribution of OLD-1 at the epidermal membrane. Interestingly, the old-1 locus is adjacent to the chil genes in the nematode genome, thereby revealing a genetic cluster important for oomycete resistance. Furthermore, we identify the VAB-3/PAX-6 transcription factor known for its role in visual system development to regulate old-1 expression, and consequently the spatial pattern of the response to oomycete recognition. Taken together, our study reveals both conserved and species-specific factors shaping the response to oomycete recognition.
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