ADAPTATION IN ANOPHELES MOSQUITOES

Worldwide interest in Anopheles mosquitoes stems from its role in the transmission of malaria, a disease responsible for over 1 million deaths per year. The success of Anopheles species in transmitting malaria parasites is closely related to its ecological abilities to face the challenges of new biotic and abiotic scenarios. As such, understanding how mosquitos adapt to their environments could have direct consequences on the design and implementation of vector control measures. Josefa González lab at IBE and Diego Ayala lab at Institut de recherche por le développement (France) have joined efforts towards the study of adaptation in Anopheles. As a first step, they have reviewed all the available evidence for the role of inversions, a type of chromosomal rearrangment, in Anopheles adaptation. 

Ref article: Ayala, D., Ullastres, A. and  González, J. Adaptation through chromosomal inversions in Anopheles. Frontiers in Genetics 5: 129. (doi: 10.3389/fgene.2014.00129).