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Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Inoculating Anopheles gambiae Mosquitoes with Beads to Induce and Measure the Melanization Immune Response
Published on: January 12, 2017
Hemocyte differentiation mediates innate immune memory in Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes
Janneth Rodrigues1, Fábio André Brayner, Luiz Carlos Alves
1Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD 20892, USA.
Abstract:
Mosquito midgut invasion by ookinetes of the malaria parasite Plasmodium disrupts the barriers that normally prevent the gut microbiota from coming in direct contact with epithelial cells. This triggers a long-lived response characterized by increased abundance of granulocytes, a subpopulation of hemocytes that circulates in the insect's hemocoel, and enhanced immunity to bacteria that indirectly reduces survival of Plasmodium parasites upon reinfection. In mosquitoes, differentiation of hemocytes was necessary and sufficient to confer innate immune memory.
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