MALARIA ANNIHILIATION ATTACK!!!

Development of transgenic fungi that kill human malaria parasites in mosquitoes. 

Fang W, Vega-Rodríguez J, Ghosh AK, Jacobs-Lorena M, Kang A, St Leger RJ.

Abstract

Metarhizium anisopliae infects mosquitoes through the cuticle and proliferates in the hemolymph. To allow M. anisopliae to combat malaria in mosquitoes with advanced malaria infections, we produced recombinant strains expressing molecules that target sporozoites as they travel through the hemolymph to the salivary glands. Eleven days after a Plasmodium-infected blood meal, mosquitoes were treated with M. anisopliae expressing salivary gland and midgut peptide 1 (SM1), which blocks attachment of sporozoites to salivary glands; a single-chain antibody that agglutinates sporozoites; or scorpine, which is an antimicrobial toxin. These reduced sporozoite counts by 71%, 85%, and 90%, respectively. M. anisopliae expressing scorpine and an [SM1](8):scorpine fusion protein reduced sporozoite counts by 98%, suggesting that Metarhizium-mediated inhibition of Plasmodium development could be a powerful weapon for combating malaria.

Science. 2011 Feb 25;331(6020):1074-7.

Why is this cool?

 Malaria is a major issue outside of the States, so a lot of research is geared towards finding a way to prevent it. You may remember that one way was to kill the mosquitoes, but today's paper does so by killing the bacterium in mosquitoes that causes malaria.
 From the abstract, it seems that the researchers took the fungal strain (M. anisopliae) and engineered it to express one of three different peptides/toxins:
1. Salivary gland and midgut peptide 1 (SM1)
2. A single chain antibody that binds (agglutinates) sporozites (Plasmodium spores).
3. Scorpine, a toxin which kills bacteria.
 When the mosquitoes were infected with one of the three engineered fungal strains and the bacteria that causes malaria (Plasmodium) and then they measured the presence of sporozites, they found amazing decreases in sporozite amounts! The best for killing the sporozites was the fungal strain expressing scorpine.

  A question is: how do they expect to use this technology to fight malaria? For some reason, some people think that all trangenic organisms have no place in nature and should be highly regulated or never used. It is a heated debate that keeps going on because the people opposed to transgenic organisms believe in doomsday scenarios where corn or rice or fish that have been genetically altered grow into super beings and devastate everything about our world. These megacorns would boils the seas! The ultrarice would cut down the rainforest! Hyperfish would take our jobs and ruin the economy!!

  The only real threat that transgenic organisms have to anything is hunger. What if there is a vast plot to keep one part of the world hunger and poor forever to maintain cheap labor!? Other uses for transgenic organisms are: producing medicines, producing industrial catalysts, and chemical detoxification!