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Updated: Jun 8, 2026
Dissection and Immunostaining of Larval Salivary Glands from Anopheles gambiae Mosquitoes
Published on: September 30, 2021
Transcriptomic and functional analysis of the Anopheles gambiae salivary gland in relation to blood feeding
Suchismita Das1, Andrea Radtke, Young-Jun Choi
1W Harry Feinstone Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 615 N Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21205-2179, USA.
Background:
The Anopheles gambiae salivary glands play a major role in malaria transmission and express a variety of bioactive components that facilitate blood-feeding by preventing platelet aggregation, blood clotting, vasodilatation, and inflammatory and other reactions at the probing site on the vertebrate host.
Results:
We have performed a global transcriptome analysis of the A. gambiae salivary gland response to blood-feeding, to identify candidate genes that are involved in hematophagy. A total of 4,978 genes were found to be transcribed in this tissue. A comparison of salivary gland transcriptomes prior to and after blood-feeding identified 52 and 41 transcripts that were significantly up-regulated and down-regulated, respectively. Ten genes were further selected to assess their role in the blood-feeding process using RNAi-mediated gene silencing methodology. Depletion of the salivary gland genes encoding D7L2, anophelin, peroxidase, the SG2 precursor, and a 5'nucleotidase gene significantly increased probing time of A. gambiae mosquitoes and thereby their capacity to blood-feed.
Conclusions:
The salivary gland transcriptome comprises approximately 38% of the total mosquito transcriptome and a small proportion of it is dynamically changing already at two hours in response to blood feeding. A better understanding of the salivary gland transcriptome and its function can contribute to the development of pathogen transmission control strategies and the identification of medically relevant bioactive compounds.
