In order to produce eggs, female mosquitoes such as Ae. aegypti drink more than their body weight in blood. While some of the iron in the bloodmeal must be used as a nutrient that is deposited in eggs, most of it must be safely excreted to avoid potential toxicity, and the proteins involved in this process are largely unknown. Previous work in my lab has aimed to identify proteins that might be involved in binding up free heme during digestion, or in transporting iron or heme from the gut lumen into the cells of the midgut. Collectively, these studies have identified a large cohort of molecules with relatively small effect size, suggesting the process of iron absorption and detoxification in mosquitoes is highly redundant. Current work in my lab aims to better characterize some of the previously identified top candidates, as well as develop new screening approaches to identify additional molecules important for the processes of iron/heme detoxification.
Image credit: Whiten, S. W, Eggleston, H., Adelman, Z. N. (2018) Ironing out the details: Exploring the role of iron and heme in blood-sucking arthropods. Front. Physiol. 8:1134.