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    Home > Food News > Food Articles > Genetically modified fungi become mosquito killers

    Genetically modified fungi become mosquito killers

    • Last Update: 2021-03-15
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    1980s, the village of Somsa in Burkina Faso helped develop one of the most powerful weapons against malaria: insecticide-treated mosquito nets. Mosquito nets were tested in the early days there and saved millions of lives. However, as mosquitoes develop resistance to widely used insecticides, mosquito nets lose some of their effectiveness.
    now, researchers hope the village can make history again by testing a new response -- a genetically modified fungus that kills mosquitoes carrying the malaria virus. Scientists tested a 600-square-meter building called the Mosquito Circle in Somoussa. The building resembles a greenhouse, but replaces glass with mosquito nets. The results showed that within a month, the fungus had eliminated 99% of the mosquitoes.
    researchers report the findings in the May 31 issue of the American journal Science.
    , an entomologist at In2Care, a mosquito control company in Wageningen, the Netherlands, said: "It's amazing to be able to get insecticide-resistant mosquitoes to this level. Farenhorst, who was not involved in the study, stressed that the fungus is still a long way from its actual use.
    the fungus could face strict regulatory hurdles because genetically modified organisms make it more deadly. However, it also has some obvious advantages, such as protecting insects other than mosquitoes, and because the fungus does not survive long in the sun, it is unlikely to spread from the interior of the building where it is used to the outside.
    can naturally infect many species of insects and reproduce by consuming host tissue. Fungi have been used to control many crop pests for decades. In 2005, researchers tested a fungus called Metarhizium in a test shed in Tanzania and found it could kill malaria-transmitting mosquitoes. But the process is so slow that many fungal-infected mosquitoes can survive long enough to transmit malaria. At the same time, scientists have difficulty ensuring that mosquitoes are infected with lethal doses of spores.
    , researchers have tested dozens of different strains of fungi designed to fight disease-carrying mosquitoes, but none has been effective enough to pass. So researchers from the University of Maryland at Park (UMD) and burkina Faso's Bobo Dioulasso Institute for Health Sciences gave a species called M. Pingshaense's strain is a gene from spider venom toxin, which is activated after contact with blood lymph (insect version of blood).
    in the lab, the team demonstrated that the fungus kills mosquitoes more quickly, and that just one or two spores can cause a deadly infection. "But it's hard to replicate the complexity of nature in the lab." UMD entomologist Brian Lovett, who led the study, said.
    is a promising place to conduct field trials , unlike many countries in Africa, it has a mature system for assessing and approving the use of genetically modified organisms. The country also has one of the highest rates of malaria in the world, and insecticide-resistant mosquitoes are widely distributed. For these and other reasons, the National Institutes of Health has funded the Mosquito Circle project, which is dedicated to testing genetically modified organisms.
    researchers worked with local residents to collect insecticide-resistant mosquito larvae from shallow pools and grow them into insecticides in the facility. After a mosquito bite, the female mosquito prefers to rest on a dark surface, so the team mixed the fungus with a locally produced sesame oil and applied it to a black cotton sheet. The latter is hung in the building's test room.
    team compared cotton sheets treated with wild fungi, genetically modified fungi and oils without fungi. They released 500 female and 1,000 male mosquitoes in each test room and fed them with a calf two nights a week. Two generations later, 45 days later, there were as many as 2,500 adult mosquitoes in the control room, including about 700 in the wild fungal control room and only 13 in the genetically modified fungal control room.
    "This is an elegant study. Farenhorst said. In many places, however, she points out, approving the use of genetically modified fungi is time-testing and expensive, and anti-GMO groups may object, just as they do against malaria-resistant genetically modified mosquitoes. "I don't believe this is the way forward."
    But Gerry Killeen, a malaria expert at the Ifakara Institute of Health in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, points out that genetically modified fungi may outnumbst those found in nature - and if patented, it could be more likely to be a product worthy of a company to develop and sell on the market.
    "the biggest obstacle to new malaria control tools is not a lack of technology or imagination, but a lack of markets." Killeen said. Because genetically modified fungi require very few spores to cause fatal infections, this product may be longer lasting and cheaper than unMOGed fungi. "If this technology has the potential to reduce costs and extend product life through more powerful features," Killeen said, "let's get started." (Source: Zhao Xixi, China Science Daily)
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