The adult Drosophila midgut is established during the larval/pupal transition from undifferentiated cells known as adult midgut precursors (AMPs). Four fundamental cell types are found in the adult midgut epithelium: undifferentiated intestinal stem cells (ISCs) and their committed daughter cells, enteroblasts (EBs), plus enterocytes (ECs) and enteroendocrine cells (EEs). Using the Drosophila p...

Septate junctions (SJs) regulate paracellular permeability across invertebrate epithelia. However, little is known about the function of SJ proteins in aquatic invertebrates. In this study, a role for the transmembrane SJ protein gliotactin (Gli) in the osmoregulatory strategies of larval mosquito (Aedes aegypti) was examined. Differences in gli transcript abundance were observed between the mi...

Multidrug/xenobiotic resistance transporters are present in living organisms as a first line defence system against small, potentially harmful molecules from the environment or from internal metabolic reactions. Multidrug resistance associated proteins (MRP) are one type of ATP-Binding-Cassette (ABC) transporters, which also transport dyes such as Fura 2, a calcium chelating fluorescence indica...

The vacuolar ATPase (V-ATPase) is a multifunctional enzyme that consists of several subunits. Subunit B is a part of the catalytic domain of the enzyme. The result of the RT-PCR suggested that the V-ATPase B subunit is a ubiquitous gene. 24 h after the larvae were infected with the Bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus (BmNPV), the expression level of the V-ATPase B subunit in the midgut of the resi...

Aedes aegypti and Ae. albopictus are among the most important vectors of arboviral diseases, worldwide. Recent studies indicate that diverse midgut microbiota of mosquitoes significantly affect development, digestion, metabolism, and immunity of their hosts. Midgut microbiota has also been suggested to modulate the competency of mosquitoes to transmit arboviruses, malaria parasites etc. Interes...

BACKGROUND Out of total 3,081 assembled expressed sequence tags (ESTs) sequences representing 6,815 high-quality ESTs identified in three cDNA libraries constructed with RNA isolated from the midgut of Spodoptera litura, 1,039 ESTs showed significant hits and 1,107 ESTs did not show significant hits in BLAST searches. It is of interest to clarify whether or not these ESTs that did not show hits...

The bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) produces parasporal crystals containing delta-endotoxins responsible for selective insecticidal activity on larvae. Upon ingestion, these crystals are solubilized in the midgut lumen and converted into active toxins that bind to receptors present on the microvilli causing serious damage to the epithelial columnar cells. We investigated the effect of the...

The resistance to the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin Cry2Ab in a greenhouse-originated Trichoplusia ni strain resistant to both Bt toxins Cry1Ac and Cry2Ab was characterized. Biological assays determined that the Cry2Ab resistance in the T. ni strain was a monogenic recessive trait independent of Cry1Ac resistance, and there existed no significant cross-resistance between Cry1Ac and Cry2Ab i...

We used a recombinant of Helicoverpa zea S nucleopolyhedrovirus containing the hsp70/lacZ reporter cassette (HzSNPV-hsp70/lacZ) to quantify mortality relationships and to elucidate early pathogenesis in two permissive hosts, Heliothis virescens and Helicoverpa zea, and one semi-permissive host, Trichoplusia ni. Fourth instar T. ni were highly resistant to fatal infection both by oral injection ...

Six gene markers have been used to map the progress of the innate immune response of the mosquito vector, Anopheles gambiae, upon infection by the malaria parasite, Plasmodium berghei. In addition to four previously reported genes, the set of markers included NOS (a nitric oxide synthase gene fragment) and ICHIT (a gene encoding two putative chitin-binding domains separated by a polythreonine-r...