Université de Strasbourg

Antiviral innate immunity

Antiviral innate immunity : from the Drosophila model to the vector mosquito Aedes aegypti

USIAS Fellow: Jean-Luc Imler

Dengue virus and other arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) have a major impact on human public health worldwide. The insect vector is a central component of the transmission cycle of arboviruses and a promising target for intervention. The goal of this project is to decipher the mechanisms of antiviral immunity in mosquitoes, which can affect both vector survival and virus replication. The project aims at translating findings made in the laboratory model Drosophila to Aedes mosquitoes.

Results from the fly model indicate that antiviral immunity in insects involves RNA interference, but also the evolutionarily conserved innate immunity pathways Toll, IMD and Jak/STAT. We will use high-throughput sequencing of long and small RNA libraries to analyze the contribution of these pathways to resistance to the arbovirus Dengue virus (DENV) in Aedes vector mosquitoes. These experiments will be conducted in collaboration with Pr. Joao Trindade-Marques at UFMG (Belo-Horizonte) in Brazil.

France 2030