Plant-borne ovicides in the fight against mosquito vectors of medical and veterinary importance: a systematic review

Abstract

Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) are a huge threat for millions of people worldwide, since they act as vectors for devastating parasites and pathogens. Culicidae control is of crucial importance. Mosquito eggs, larvae, and pupae are usually targeted using organophosphates, insect growth regulators, and microbial agents. Indoor residual spraying and insecticide-treated bed nets are also employed. However, these chemicals have negative effects on human health and the environment, and induce resistance in a number of species. Eco-friendly tools have been recently implemented against mosquito vectors, including botanical insecticides. The majority of researches focused on larvicides (745 SCOPUS results, July 2015) and adult repellents (434 SCOPUS results), while limited efforts were conducted to identify effective ovicides of botanical origin (59 SCOPUS results). Here, I review current knowledge on the effectiveness of plant-borne ovicides against major mosquito vectors of medical and veterinary importance. The majority of researches focused on the toxicity of crude extracts, their fractions, or essential oils against three important mosquito vectors, Anopheles stephensi, Aedes aegypti, and Culex quinquefasciatus. As a general trend, C. quinquefasciatus eggs were the most resistant to botanical ovicides. Five studies proposed selected compounds from plant extracts and essential oils as ovicides effective at few parts per million. However, no efforts were conducted to shed light on possible mechanisms underlying the toxicity of plant-borne ovicides. In the final section, a number of hot issues needing further research and cooperation among parasitologists, entomologists, and researchers working in natural product chemistry are outlined.

Proximate Composition, Amino and Fatty Acid Profiles and Element Compositions of Four Different Moringa Species

“…The large discrepancy in scientific interest is likely based on several important and advantageous properties of M. oleifera; of which the most important and well known is probably the coagulation ability of specific seed proteins (Olsen, 1987;Gassenschmidt et al, 1995;Muyibi & Evison, 1995;Ndabigengesere, Narasiah, & Talbot, 1995;Ndabigengesere & Narasiah, 1998). Other reasons that M. oleifera has been the focus of study are the potential utilization of the seeds as a feed additive (Ben Salem & Makkar, 2009;Hlophe & Moyo, 2014; T. P. Singh, P. Singh, & Kumar, 2015) or insecticide (Benelli, 2015); the importance of the leaves for human nutrition (Subadra, Monica, & Dhabhai, 1997;Babu, 2000;Fahey, 2005;Thurber & Fahey, 2009); including its potential use as a human famine food (Sena et al, 1998) and as animal feed (Richter et al, 2003;Negesse, Makkar, & Becker, 2009;Abbas, 2013) and the medical potential of all plant parts (Anwar et al, 2007;Jaeschke, Williams, McGill, Xie, & Ramachandran, 2013); including the antibiotic activity of pods, flowers and leaves (Brilhante et al, 2015).…”

Declining malaria, rising of dengue and Zika virus: insights for mosquito vector control

“…Saltidin®, 1-piperidine-carboxylic acid 2-2 hydroxyethyl-1-methylester), and also an Eucalyptus citriodora derivative (para-menthane-3,8-diol) (Abdel-Ghaffar et al 2015;Mehlhorn 2016). People living in regions with endemic mosquito borne diseases should synergize these strategies with the reduction or removal of Culicidae breeding sites, as well as with mosquitocidal treatments using chemical or microbiological ovicides, larvicides and pupicides (Amer and Mehlhorn 2006c, d;Semmler et al 2009;Benelli 2015b). Concerning the employ of synthetic pesticides, particular attention should be given to the development of mosquito-resistant strains, as well as to concerns for human health and the environment (Hemingway and Ranson 2000;Naqqash et al 2016).…”

Green-Synthesized Mosquito Oviposition Attractants and Ovicides: Towards a Nanoparticle-Based “Lure and Kill” Approach?

“…In latest years, a growing number of evidences have been provided about the larvicidal efficacy of plant-fabricated nanolarvicides, while only moderate efforts focused on their ovicidal potential and oviposition manipulation activity [17,36]. Each plant material containing unique bioactivity including repellent, larvicidal, ovicidal, and adulticidal activity, thus their efficacy of nanosynthetical routes varies from species to species and also according to the tested plant parts [1,2,37,38]. Combination of nanoparticles with bioactive principles bestows improved efficiency.…”

“…Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) represent a key threat for millions of humans and animals worldwide, since they act as vectors for important parasites and pathogens, including malaria, filariasis and important arboviruses, such as dengue, West Nile and Zika virus [1,2]. Current control strategies mainly rely to synthetic pesticides, insect growth regulators and microbial control agents.…”