A Blood Meal Enhances Innexin mRNA Expression in the Midgut, Malpighian Tubules, and Ovaries of the Yellow Fever Mosquito Aedes aegypti.

ABSTRACT: Mosquitoes are vectors of pathogens that cause diseases of medical and veterinary importance. Female mosquitoes transmit these pathogens while taking a blood meal, which most species require to produce eggs. The period after a blood meal is a time of extreme physiological change that requires rapid coordination of specific tissues. Gap junctions (GJ) are intercellular channels that aid in the coordination of cells within tissues via the direct transfer of certain small molecules and ions between cells. Evolutionarily distinct groups of proteins form the gap junctions of vertebrate and invertebrate animals (connexins and innexins, respectively). Aedes aegypti mosquitoes possess six genes encoding innexins: inx1, inx2, inx3, inx4, inx7, and inx8. The goal of this study was to identify potent

SUBMITTER: Calkins TL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5746805 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature