Establishment of Three Diploid Cell Lines of Anopheles Stephensi (diptera: Culicidae)

The culture of insect tissues in vitro offers considerable potential for studying many aspects of the pathogenic cycles of protozoan, bacterial, and viral agents which have an insect vector or reservoir . Studies directed toward this end have been limited in number since the culture of insect cells has, in itself, been a very difficult task (2, 8, 13) . Progress in this field was not too encouraging until the work of Grace demonstrated the feasibility of obtaining both long-term primary cultures and continuous cell lines of insect origin (5-7) . Following this lead, insect cell lines have now been reported for 9 genera and 13 species (1, 3 9, 10, 12) . This report describes the establishment of 3 additional cell lines originating from larval tissues of the mosquito Anopheles stephensi which is the vector both in nature and in the laboratory for a number of malaria parasites .