@article{0b5e92c1509344fbb7803f18320ec98b,
title = "Caudal is a negative regulator of the Anopheles IMD Pathway that controls resistance to Plasmodium falciparum infection",
abstract = "Malaria parasite transmission depends upon the successful development of Plasmodium in its Anopheles mosquito vector. The mosquito's innate immune system constitutes a major bottleneck for parasite population growth. We show here that in Anopheles gambiae, the midgut-specific transcription factor Caudal acts as a negative regulator in the Imd pathway-mediated immune response against the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Caudal also modulates the mosquito midgut bacterial flora. RNAi-mediated silencing of Caudal enhanced the mosquito's resistance to bacterial infections and increased the transcriptional abundance of key immune effector genes. Interestingly, Caudal's silencing resulted in an increased lifespan of the mosquito, while it impaired reproductive fitness with respect to egg laying and hatching.",
keywords = "Anopheles, Caudal, Imd pathway, Innate immunity, Mosquito, Plasmodium",
author = "Clayton, {April M.} and Cirimotich, {Chris M.} and Yuemei Dong and George Dimopoulos",
note = "Funding Information: We would like to thank members of the Dimopoulos lab; the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute Mosquito and Parasitology core facilities; and the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Genomic Analysis and Sequencing core facility. We would also like to thank Dr. Zhijian (Jake) Tu for sharing the A. stephensi genome contig sequences and Dr. Deborah McClellan for editorial assistance. This work has been supported by National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease grant R01AI061576 , the Calvin and Helen Lang postdoctoral fellowship to CMC , a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and a UNCF-Merck Science Initiative Graduate Research Fellowship to AMC, and the Bloomberg Family Foundation . The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. ",
year = "2013",
month = apr,
doi = "10.1016/j.dci.2012.10.009",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "39",
pages = "323--332",
journal = "Developmental and Comparative Immunology",
issn = "0145-305X",
publisher = "Elsevier Limited",
number = "4",
}