Mosquito saliva is known to play a significant role in the transmission of viruses such as yellow fever, Zika, dengue, and chikungunya, yet many of its functions have yet to be understood. In a new study, researchers revealed that a mosquito salivary protein binds to an immune molecule in humans, facilitating infection in human skin caused by the transmitted virus. The findings are in .
Ticks and mosquitoes don't just inject pathogens, explains corresponding author Erol Fikrig, MD, Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) and professor of microbial pathogenesis at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) and professor of epidemiology (microbial diseases) at the Yale School of Public Health. "Their saliva serves many purposes when it interacts with the human host," he said. For the study, the team probed a curated yeast display library of human proteins with Nest1, a in the Aedes aegypti mosquito saliva that they had identified as important in previous research.
The researchers demonstrated that Nest1 interacts with human CD47, an immune receptor found on the surface of many cells in the body. CD47 controls several immune processes, including those that protect certain cells and destroy others. "This interaction shows that the mosquito is trying to change the biological functions governed by CD47," said Alejandro Marín López, Ph.
D., associate research scientist at YSM and the study's first author. "We saw that Nest1 is inhibiting some of these functions, like.
