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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Gainesville, Florida » Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology » Mosquito and Fly Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #381651
Research Project: Integrated Pest Management of Mosquitoes and Biting Flies

Location: Mosquito and Fly Research

Title: DFDT (p-p’-difluoro-DDT) as an antimalarial mosquitocide

Author
item Norris, Edmund
item DEMARES, FABIEN - University Of Florida
item ZHU, XIAOLONG - New York University
item BLOOMQUIST, JEFFREY - University Of Florida

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/2/2021
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: New insecticides are urgently needed for the control of arthropod vectors of public health diseases. As resistance to many insecticides used for the control of public health pests is ubiquitous, all available chemistries should be evaluated for their potential to effectively control both insecticide-susceptible and insecticide-resistant strains of mosquitoes. This study aimed to evaluate p-p’-difluoro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DFDT) as a mosquito control technology and relate its activity to that of DDT. We found that topical DFDT was significantly less toxic than DDT to both pyrethroid-susceptible and pyrethroid-resistant strains of Anopheles gambiae and Aedes aegypti. Direct nervous system recording from Drosophila melanogaster CNS demonstrated that DFDT is approximately 10-times less potent than DDT at blocking nerve firing, which may explain its relatively lower toxicity. DFDT was shown to be at least 4500 times more vapor-active than DDT, with an LC50 in a vapor toxicity screening assay of 2.2 µg/cm2. Resistance to DFDT was assessed in two mosquito strains that possess target-site mutations in the voltage-gated sodium channel and upregulated metabolic activity. Resistance ratios for Akdr (An. gambiae) and Puerto Rico (Ae. aegypti) strains were 9.2 and 12.2, respectively. Overall, this study demonstrates that DFDT is unlikely to be a viable public health vector control insecticide.