Artificial Diets for Mosquitoes

Abstract

Mosquito-borne diseases are responsible for more than a million human deaths every year. Modern mosquito control strategies such as sterile insect technique (SIT), release of insects carrying a dominant lethal (RIDL), population replacement strategies (PR), and Wolbachia-based strategies require the rearing of large numbers of mosquitoes in culture for continuous release over an extended period of time. Anautogenous mosquitoes require essential nutrients for egg production, which they obtain through the acquisition and digestion of a protein-rich blood meal. Therefore, mosquito mass production in laboratories and other facilities relies on vertebrate blood from live animal hosts. However, vertebrate blood is expensive to acquire and hard to store for longer times especially under field conditions. This review discusses older and recent studies that were aimed at the development of artificial diets for mosquitoes in order to replace vertebrate blood.

A Blood-Free Diet to Rear Anopheline Mosquitoes

“…Artificial blood-free meals can maintain Aedes colonies 22 , but when applied to Anopheles mosquitoes they are of limited or no success 11 .…”

“…In addition, artificial diets have a standard composition and thus are more reliable for production of mosquitoes for research and control purposes. Successful blood-free diets have been developed for Aedes mosquitoes (reviewed by Gonzales and Hansen 11 ) but not for Anopheles spp. Existing artificial diets contain a phagostimulant (e.g., ATP…”

Crystal structure of a novel Kunitz type inhibitor, alocasin with anti‐Aedes aegypti activity targeting midgut proteases

“…Mosquitoes were reared in glass cages of the same dimensions. The adult colony was provided periodically feed with bovine serum albumin (BSA; 200 mg mL −1 ) and ATP (1 m m ) in phosphate‐buffered saline . After 3 days, an ovitrap was placed in the cages and eggs were collected and transferred to enamel trays.…”

“…The adult colony was provided periodically feed with bovine serum albumin (BSA; 200 mg mL −1 ) and ATP (1 mM) in phosphate-buffered saline. 60 After 3 days, an ovitrap was placed in the cages and eggs were collected and transferred to enamel trays. Two developmental stages, larvae and adult females, and eggs were continuously available for the experiments and were maintained under the above conditions.…”

Effects of alternative blood sources on Wolbachia infected Aedes aegypti females within and across generations

“…aegypti is highly adapted to human blood, however in many countries large volumes of human blood are difficult to obtain and subject to strict ethical and regulatory control [20] particularly given the risk of viral transfer in disease-endemic zones. Artificial blood sources are currently under development [21] and appear to act as appropriate substitutes for human blood [22] including for wMel-infected mosquitoes where no effect on Wolbachia parameters including density, CI and virus inhibition were demonstrated [20,23].…”