K. Amponsah-Manager
A team of scientists in the UK and US have genetically modified a fungus that prevents the development of malaria-causing parasites in the mosquitoes. The study which has been published in the journal Science showed that the fungus can eliminate up to 90% of the parasite in the vector that carry it, the female anopheles mosquito.
The scientists inserted the genes of human antibodies or scorpion toxins into a fungus called Metarhizium anisopliae and infected mosquitoes with the fungus. This conferred onto mosquitoes infected with the fungus the ability to block the development of malaria-causing parasites in mosquitoes.
The female Anopheles mosquitoes are the vectors for the malaria parasite, Plasmodium, which develop inside the body of mosquitoes. The mosquito simply helps to shuttle the parasite between infected person and healthy people and therefore the ability to deprive the parasite of its taxi service is key to fighting the illness.
Due to the environmental hazards of using pesticides to fight the malaria mosquitoes and the development of resistance to many anti-malarial products, recent years scientists have focused their attention on finding natural and environmental friendly methods to fight the disease. The fungus Metarhizium anisopliae naturally kills mosquitoes but unlike parasites, it takes day to accomplish that. The advantage of the Fungi’s patience is that because the mosquitoes can mate and do their usual chores, they have less reason to develop resistance.
Results of the study showed that malaria parasite survived in the salivary glands of 25 percent of the mosquitoes sprayed with the genetically modified organism, compared to 87 percent of those sprayed with an unmodified strain of the fungus, and to 94 percent of those that were not sprayed at all.
The good news from the study is the possibility that spraying malaria-transmitting mosquitoes with the genetically-modified fungus, also known as transgenic fungus, could one day become a feasible method to significantly reduce the transmission of the disease to humans.
