NIH SciBites: Using Zombie Mosquitos to Make Sense of Mosquito Borne Viruses

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Category: Health Research

Tags: diseasemosquitoresearchtransmissionvirus

Entities: mosquitoNational Institutes of HealthvirusWillzombie mosquitoes

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Summary

    Mosquito Bite Mechanics
    • Mosquitoes inject saliva while biting, which opens up veins and prevents pain.
    • If carrying a virus, mosquitoes can transmit it through their saliva.
    Virus Transmission Dynamics
    • For a mosquito to transmit a virus, it must first bite an infected individual.
    • The virus requires an incubation period to move from the mosquito's stomach to its saliva glands.
    • Environmental factors and the mosquito's lifespan affect virus transmission potential.
    Research and Innovation
    • Research involves creating 'zombie mosquitoes' to study virus interactions with mosquito organs.
    • Understanding these interactions could help control mosquito-related disease outbreaks.
    Takeaways
    • Mosquito saliva plays a key role in painless biting and potential virus transmission.
    • Virus transmission depends on mosquito lifespan and environmental conditions.
    • Research on mosquito-virus interactions aims to prevent disease outbreaks.
    • Innovative methods like 'zombie mosquitoes' are used for studying virus behavior.
    • Future insights could lead to better control of mosquito-borne diseases.

    Transcript

    00:00

    Hello, my name is Will and I'm a graduate student at the National Institutes of Health. Have you ever wondered why mosquito bites don't hurt at all?

    When mosquitoes bite you to drink your blood, they inject saliva as well. That saliva makes your veins open

    00:15

    up so that your blood is more accessible, and it also prevents you from feeling the bite. If the mosquito is carrying a virus, however, it can hitch a ride into your body with the saliva, and you'll feel that soon enough.

    For a mosquito to transmit a virus, it first needs to bite someone

    00:30

    infected with that virus and then live long enough for the virus to travel from its stomach to the glands that produce its saliva. This stretch of time, which we call an incubation period, can last a week or more, which is longer than the average lifespan of the mosquito.

    For

    00:45

    that reason, whether an infected mosquito lives long enough to transmit the virus depends on the environment the mosquito is living in and how quickly the virus goes through its incubation period. To get around this problem, viruses use all sorts of tricks that allow them to

    01:02

    infect mosquitoes more easily and reach their saliva glands more quickly. To learn about how mosquitoes do that, I create what I like to call zombie mosquitoes.

    I harvest mosquito stomachs and saliva glands and then keep these organs alive outside of the mosquito so

    01:18

    that I can study how viruses interact with them, including what happens to the virus when it comes out in an infected mosquito's bite. Eventually, this information may be useful for understanding the complicated interactions between mosquitoes and the viruses they carry.

    With that knowledge

    01:35

    in hand, we might one day be able to better control outbreaks of mosquito- related diseases.