[/caption]Researchers at Ohio State University have recently answered a question that many biologists had wondered for a long time; how does a mosquito cope with the fast rise in body temperature after taking a blood meal? When a mosquito takes a blood meal its body temperature can rise as much as ten degrees in a minute, not many organisms can cope with such a shock to their system.
What they discovered was the female mosquito's ability to produce a heat shock protein (hsp70) whose ability is to inhibit the denaturation of essential proteins and enzymes. We as humans produce the same heat shock proteins when we have a fever, just not in such large amounts relative to body size. To ensure that it was the rise in temperature that triggered production of hsp70 the researchers injected mosquito's with a saline solution at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit and another at room temperature. Only the mosquito injected with the warmer solution produced the high levels of hsp70.
After they determined it was the heat of the blood meal that triggered the production of the protein they decided to see what would happen if they knocked out the gene for the production of hsp70. What they saw was that the mosquito's ability to digest the blood meal was severely reduced and therefore the number of eggs that they would lay was also greatly reduced. Perhaps further research could find new ways to control mosquito population, or even develop novel pesticides.
This is pretty neat. Its fascinating what small creatures they are but how sustainable they're become.
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