Location: Foreign Arthropod Borne Animal Disease Research
Project Number: 3022-32000-025-020-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Sep 1, 2023
End Date: Aug 30, 2025
Objective:
The objective of this agreement is to gain greater insight into the role mosquito salivary proteins play in the infection process of arboviruses that pose threats to human and agricultural animals across the world. Changes in salivary content of mosquitos reared under different condition and infection states will enhance our understanding of the molecular processes of immune modulation and disease enhancement observed in previous research.
Approach:
Saliva will be collected from mosquitos reared under different dietary conditions and infection states. These samples will be processed by nanoscale liquid chromatography coupled tandem mass spectrometry (nLC-MS). The low volume input requirements of nLC-MS allow for more samples to be collected and processed compared to other methods, which will enable detailed time course studies. The data will be analyzed to form a robust understanding of how the salivary content of mosquitos changes under different conditions and identify specific proteins of interest for future host-vector-virus interaction studies.
