DEVELOPMENT of SALIVARY MOSQUITOES-BASED TRANSMISSION BLOCKING VACCINE for MALARIA AND DENGUE

Abstract

Mosquito-borne diseases are rampant in most tropical regions of the world, especially rural, forested and coastal areas such as Indonesia. Despite long-standing chemotherapeutic intercession and vector control programs, mosquito-borne diseases exact a heavy burden on human health in Indonesia. Two major public health problems transmitted by mosquito in Indonesia are Malaria and Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever (DHF), causing million clinical episodes occurring annually. Although malaria had ever been virtually eradicated from Indonesia but currently malaria is recognized as a serious re-emerging threat to public health. DHF cases were first observed in 1968; since then, the incidence has been constantly increasing and the disease is now one of the principal causes of child lethality. It has been widely observed that saliva of mosquito that transmits disease contains several factors that could enhance pathogen infection. Therefore, it should be possible to control pathogen transmission by vaccinating the host against the molecule(s) in saliva that potentiate the infection. However, specific component as a potential target for TBV in mosquitoes vectors of Malaria & Dengue i.e. Anopheles as well as Aedes aegypti has not yet been identified so far. There was reduction in parasitaemic rates in mouse model which is previously vaccinated by salivary extract from A. aconitus, A. sundaicus & A. maculatus in our research, indicated the potential role of this vector’s saliva to serve as novel target in developing new vaccine targets and novel strategies against malaria. The existence of specific immunogenic proteins with MW of 31 & 56 kDa which may serve as important factor to confer Dengue infection resistancy, suggested its important role in human-virus-pathogen interaction. To our knowledge, these are the first reports on exploration of salivary glands from Indonesian mosquito’s vector. Therefore, to further elucidate salivary role in establishing and/or inhibiting infection, the predominant effectors mechanism in host immune response and molecular characterization of those specific SG’s protein should be further investigated.