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allied
academies
Microbiology: Current Research
Volume 2
International Conference on
Emerging Diseases, Outbreaks & Case Studies
&
16
th
Annual Meeting on
March 28-29, 2018 | Orlando, USA
Influenza
M
osquitoes transmitted many diseases including Zika
and Malaria. Malaria alone is responsible for about
two hundred million clinical cases worldwide and kills
nearly one million a year. Malaria is caused by
Plasmodium
parasites and transmitted by
Anopheles
mosquitoes. Zika
can trigger paralysis and birth defects. Inhibiting pathogen
development in mosquitoes will block disease transmission.
My research aims to find target genes that are essential
for pathogen transmission in mosquitoes, and further to
develop drugs targeting these critical genes to stop disease
transmission. By genomic approaches, several critical genes
have been discovered for
Plasmodium
parasite transmission
to
Anopheles
mosquitoes. Furthermore, we tested the
hypothesis that small molecule compounds disrupting
the interaction would prevent parasites from infecting
mosquitoes. We screened a large fungal extract library
from more than 12,000 different fungal species, and found
several bioactive compounds including
P
-orlandin that
specifically inhibits the interaction between FREP1 and
P.
falciparum
. Notably, feeding mosquitoes with candidate
fungal metabolites significantly inhibited
P. falciparum
transmission to mosquitoes. Surprisingly, spraying one non-
toxic candidate compound could prevent mosquitoes from
transmitting malaria. Therefore, targeting molecules that are
responsible for pathogen invasion with bioactive compounds
is an effective novel approach to block the spread of vector-
borne diseases.
e:
lij@fiu.eduBlocking the transmission of vector borne diseases with fungal metabolites
Jun Li
Florida International University, USA