Project description:In this study, 10x Chromium technology was applied to quantify transcripts from single-cell nuclei of adult male and female brain of Aedes aegypti, a medically important mosquito vector that transmits yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses to humans.
Project description:Background. Aedes aegypti is arguably the most studied of all mosquito species in the laboratory and is the primary vector of both Dengue and Yellow Fever flaviviruses in the field. A large number of transcriptional studies have been made in the species and these usually report transcript quantities observed at a certain age or stage of development. However, circadian oscillation is an important characteristic of gene expression in many animals and plants, modulating both their physiology and behavior. Circadian gene expression in mosquito species has been previously reported but for only a few genes directly involved in the function of the molecular clock. Results. Herein we analyze the transcription profiles of 21,494 messenger RNAs using an Ae. aegypti Agilent® microarray. Transcripts were quantified in adult female heads at 24 hours and then again at 72 hours and eight subsequent time points spaced four hours apart. We document circadian rhythms in multiple molecular pathways essential for growth, development, immune response, detoxification/pesticide resistance. Circadian rhythms were also noted in ribosomal protein genes used for normalization in reverse transcribed PCR (RT-PCR) to determine transcript abundance. We report pervasive oscillations and intricate synchronization patterns relevant to all known biological pathways. Conclusion. These results argue strongly that transcriptional analyses either need to be made over time periods rather than confining analyses to a single time point or development stage or exceptional care needs to be made to synchronize all mosquitoes to be analyzed and compared among treatment groups.
Project description:Custom microarrays were used to examine global differences in female vs. male gene expression in the developing pupal head of the dengue vector mosquito Aedes aegypti.
Project description:Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infect hundreds of millions of people each year with dangerous viral pathogens including dengue, yellow fever, Zika, and chikungunya. Progress in understanding the biology of this insect, and developing tools to fight it, depends on the availablity of a high-quality genome assembly. Here we use DNA proximity ligaton (Hi-C) and Pacific Biosciences long reads to create AaegL5 - a highly contiguous A. aegypti reference.
Project description:Argonaute (AGO) proteins bind small RNAs to silence complementary RNA transcripts and are central to RNA interference (RNAi). AGO-crosslinking immunoprecipitation (AGO-CLIP) has illuminated RNAi networks, but bioinformatic analysis is laborious and lack of experimental tools hinders its application outside of model organisms. RNAi is critical for regulation of gene expression and defense against viral infection in the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which transmits Zika, chikungunya, dengue, and yellow fever viruses to cause human disease. We developed AGO-CLIP for both mosquito AGO proteins and a universal, streamlined software package for CLIP analysis, identifying 230 novel small RNAs and 5,447 small RNA targets that comprise a comprehensive RNAi network map. We used this unique resource to predict repression of small RNA targets in specific mosquito tissues. Notably, this resource revealed unexpected AGO target preferences and uncovered a new mode of AGO-mediated repression, findings that have broad implications for the study of antiviral RNAi.
Project description:Microarray analysis on days 1, 2 and 7 post-infection with dengue, yellow fever and West Nile virus in Aedes aegypti Rockefeller strain mosquitoes RNA was purified and hybridized with Nimblegen X4 microarray chips using 81-mer probes designed from 18,000 open reading frames (ORF) found in the Ae. aegypti genome, with 2 different probes per ORF
Project description:Background. Aedes aegypti is arguably the most studied of all mosquito species in the laboratory and is the primary vector of both Dengue and Yellow Fever flaviviruses in the field. A large number of transcriptional studies have been made in the species and these usually report transcript quantities observed at a certain age or stage of development. However, circadian oscillation is an important characteristic of gene expression in many animals and plants, modulating both their physiology and behavior. Circadian gene expression in mosquito species has been previously reported but for only a few genes directly involved in the function of the molecular clock. Results. Herein we analyze the transcription profiles of 21,494 messenger RNAs using an Ae. aegypti Agilent® microarray. Transcripts were quantified in adult female heads at 24 hours and then again at 72 hours and eight subsequent time points spaced four hours apart. We document circadian rhythms in multiple molecular pathways essential for growth, development, immune response, detoxification/pesticide resistance. Circadian rhythms were also noted in ribosomal protein genes used for normalization in reverse transcribed PCR (RT-PCR) to determine transcript abundance. We report pervasive oscillations and intricate synchronization patterns relevant to all known biological pathways. Conclusion. These results argue strongly that transcriptional analyses either need to be made over time periods rather than confining analyses to a single time point or development stage or exceptional care needs to be made to synchronize all mosquitoes to be analyzed and compared among treatment groups. 12 samples representing 48h timeline sampled every 4h. Each chip has one channel taken by sample at ZG24h and the other by ZG72h, ZG76h and so on. Each time point has two independent replicates from two independent pools of mosquitoes sampled on the same calendar day. These time series are concatenated to form one continuous 48h time series for each gene. The circadian expression analysis presented in the associated paper encompasses a test timeframe of 72 – 92 hour (Cy3-labeled). Supplementary file: The unabridged matrix of processed data (includes duplicated features) is linked below.
Project description:The Flavivirus genus contains some of the most prevalent vector-borne viruses such as dengue, Zika and yellow fever viruses that cause devastating diseases in humans. However, the insect-specific clade of flaviviruses is restricted to mosquito hosts; albeit they have retained the general features of the genus such as genome structure and replication. The interaction between insect-specific flaviviruses (ISFs) and their mosquito hosts are largely unknown. Pathogenic flaviviruses are known to modulate host-derived microRNAs (miRNAs), a class of non-coding RNAs that are important in controlling gene expression. Alteration in miRNAs may represent changes in host gene expression and provide understanding of virus-host interactions. The role of miRNAs in ISF-mosquito interactions is largely unknown. A recently discovered Australian ISF, Palm Creek virus (PCV), has the ability to suppress medically relevant flaviviruses. Here, we investigated the potential involvement of miRNAs in PCV infection using the model mosquito Aedes aegypti. By combining small RNA sequencing and bioinformatics analysis, differentially expressed miRNAs were determined. Our results indicated that PCV infection hardly affects host miRNAs. Out of 101 reported miRNAs of Ae. aegypti, only aae-miR-2940-5p had significant altered expression over the course of infection. However, further analysis of aae-miR-2940-5p revealed that this miRNA does not have any direct impact on PCV replication in vitro. Thus, the results overall suggest that PCV infection has a limited effect on the mosquito miRNA profile and therefore, they may not play a significant role the PCV- Ae. aegypti interaction.
Project description:The mosquito Ae. aegypti is responsible for the transmission of many diseases including yellow fever and Dengue fever. This species exhibits many behaviors that are under diel and circadian control. However, there has been little reporting on gene expression rhythmicity. To study how gene expression is globally regulated by diel and circadian mechanisms, we have undertaken a DNA microarray analysis of Ae. aegypti head and bodies under 12:12 light:dark cycle (LD) and constant dark (DD, free-running) conditions. Zeitgeber Time (ZT) with ZT12 defined as the initiation of the one hour dusk period under the light:dark cycle, and ZT0 defined as beginning of the one hour dawn period. Circadian Time (CT) with CT0 defined as subjective dawn, inferred from ZT0 of the previous light:dark cycle.