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Dengue fever

Mosquitoes attacked from within

Nature volume 476, pages 407–408 (2011)Cite this article

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Infection with a harmless bacterium makes the mosquitoes that transmit dengue virus resistant to viral infection. The resistant population can rapidly replace the natural, susceptible population. See Letters p.450 & p.454

Dengue fever is the most prevalent mosquito-borne viral disease in humans. The virus is transmitted mainly by the mosquito Aedes aegypti, and so targeting this insect has been considered a viable option for controlling the incidence of the disease. In two papers in this issue (Walker et al.1 and Hoffmann et al.2), a team of researchers reports an unusual approach for making A. aegypti almost completely resistant to infection, and thereby blocking transmission of dengue virus. Moreover, when the authors released their dengue-resistant mosquitoes into the wild, the insects replaced nearly 100% of the natural, susceptible mosquito population within a matter of months.

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Figure 1: Dengue-virus control.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jason L. Rasgon is in the W. Harry Feinstone Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, and at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA.,

    Jason L. Rasgon

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  1. Jason L. Rasgon
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Correspondence to Jason L. Rasgon.

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Rasgon, J. Mosquitoes attacked from within. Nature 476, 407–408 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/476407a

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