Project description:Proteomic analysis of Anopheles gambiae brain tissue after in-gel trypsin digestion. To gain insights into neurobiology of the Anopheles gambiae mosquito, we carried out a proteomic analysis of its brain using a comprehensive proteomic approach.
Project description:Heteromorphic sex chromosomes induce potentially deleterious gene expression imbalances that are frequently corrected by dosage compensation (DC). Three distinct molecular strategies to achieve DC have been previously described in nematodes, fruit flies and mammals. The reason for these mechanistic differences remain unclear: Are they a consequence of distinct genomes and gene content, functional or ecological constraints, or random initial commitment to an evolutionary trajectory? Here, we study DC in the malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae. The X chromosomes of Anopheles and Drosophila evolved independently, yet from the same ancestral autosome and share a high degree of homology. We find that Anopheles achieves DC by an entirely different mechanism compared to the MSL complex - H4K16ac axis operating in Drosophila. CRISPR knock-out of msl-2 in Anopheles leads to early embryonic lethality and affects both sexes. Transcriptome analyses indicate that this phenotype is not a consequence of defective X chromosome DC, but instead relates to misregulation of developmental genes. Furthermore, Histone H4 Lysine 16 acetylation does not mark an X chromosome territory, neither does it display a sexually dimorphic genome-wide distribution by ChIP. We conclude that a novel pathway confers X chromosome upregulation in male Anopheles. Our findings highlight the pluralism of how organisms cope with gene-dosage alterations and show that different mechanisms can evolve even in scenarios of highly similar genomic and functional constraints.
Project description:Malaria-transmitting mosquitoes are extremely sexually dimorphic in their anatomy and behaviour. Sex-specific gene expression in Anopheles gambiae is well-studied in adult stages, but its onset during embryogenesis, apart from sex-determination factors like Yob, remains largely unknown. Here, we report a comprehensive single-embryo transcriptome atlas of A. gambiae males and females to understand the earliest stages of establishing the sex-specific expression networks. Our dataset reveals embryonic RNA isoform diversity including a global shift towards distal alternative polyadenylation (APA) events sites during the maternal-to-zygotic genome transition. Sex-biased gene expression and alternative splicing are limited during embryogenesis, with most sex-specific patterns emerging post-embryonically. X chromosome dosage compensation is established shortly after zygotic genome activation concomitant with direct binding of the master regulator protein SOA to X-linked promoters. Unlike the dosage compensation regulators in Drosophila or mammals, SOA operates in a one-step fashion, directly binding CA-rich promoter motifs without prioritizing certain gene groups over others. We propose that the Anopheles dosage compensation system represents an evolutionary endpoint of a gene-by-gene regulatory mechanism that evolved to a chromosome-wide scale.
Project description:Comparison of a pyrethroid insecticides resistant field population of Anopheles gambiae ss collected in Tiefora, Burkina Faso (2014) compared to a lab susceptible ss Anopheles gambiae Kisumu.
Project description:Heteromorphic sex chromosomes induce potentially deleterious gene expression imbalances that are frequently corrected by dosage compensation (DC). Three distinct molecular strategies to achieve DC have been previously described in nematodes, fruit flies and mammals. The reason for these mechanistic differences remain unclear: Are they a consequence of distinct genomes and gene content, functional or ecological constraints, or random initial commitment to an evolutionary trajectory? Here, we study DC in the malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae. The X chromosomes of Anopheles and Drosophila evolved independently, yet from the same ancestral autosome and share a high degree of homology. We find that Anopheles achieves DC by an entirely different mechanism compared to the MSL complex - H4K16ac axis operating in Drosophila. CRISPR knock-out of msl-2 in Anopheles leads to early embryonic lethality and affects both sexes. Transcriptome analyses indicate that this phenotype is not a consequence of defective X chromosome DC, but instead relates to misregulation of developmental genes. Furthermore, Histone H4 Lysine 16 acetylation does not mark an X chromosome territory, neither does it display a sexually dimorphic genome-wide distribution by ChIP. We conclude that a novel pathway confers X chromosome upregulation in male Anopheles. Our findings highlight the pluralism of how organisms cope with gene-dosage alterations and show that different mechanisms can evolve even in scenarios of highly similar genomic and functional constraints.
Project description:Malaria-transmitting mosquitoes are extremely sexually dimorphic in their anatomy and behaviour. Sex-specific gene expression in Anopheles gambiae is well-studied in adult stages, but its onset during embryogenesis, apart from sex-determination factors like Yob, remains largely unknown. Here, we report a comprehensive single-embryo transcriptome atlas of A. gambiae males and females to understand the earliest stages of establishing the sex-specific expression networks. Our dataset reveals embryonic RNA isoform diversity including a global shift towards distal alternative polyadenylation (APA) events sites during the maternal-to-zygotic genome transition. Sex-biased gene expression and alternative splicing are limited during embryogenesis, with most sex-specific patterns emerging post-embryonically. X chromosome dosage compensation is established shortly after zygotic genome activation concomitant with direct binding of the master regulator protein SOA to X-linked promoters. Unlike the dosage compensation regulators in Drosophila or mammals, SOA operates in a one-step fashion, directly binding CA-rich promoter motifs without prioritizing certain gene groups over others. We propose that the Anopheles dosage compensation system represents an evolutionary endpoint of a gene-by-gene regulatory mechanism that evolved to a chromosome-wide scale.
Project description:We characterize the epigenome of the human malaria vector Anopheles gambiae in midgut cells by mapping the distribution and levels of two post-translational histone modifications, H3K27ac and H3K27me3. These histone profiles were then correlated with levels of gene expression obtained by RNA-seq. ChIP-seq and RNA-seq were performed on adult female A. gambiae midguts. RNA-seq was performed on adult female A. gambiae salivary glands.
Project description:we report the RNA-seq based analyses of the transcriptional changes in the Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes from East Africa classified as deltamethrin-resistant or -suscpetible accordign the WHO test
Project description:we report the RNA-seq based analyses of the transcriptional changes in the Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes from East Africa classified as deltamethrin-resistant or -suscpetible accordign the WHO test comparison of the transcriptome of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes with phenotypically resistant or suscpetible to deltamethrin