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Research

Biological systems - including the simplest cells - exhibit a broad range of functions to thrive in their environment. Research in the Imperial College Centre for Synthetic Biology is focused on the possibility of engineering the underlying biochemical processes to solve many of the challenges facing society, from healthcare to sustainable energy. In particular, we model, analyse, design and build biological and biochemical systems in living cells and/or in cell extracts, both exploring and enhancing the engineering potential of biology.

As part of our research we develop novel methods to accelerate the celebrated Design-Build-Test-Learn synthetic biology cycle. As such research in the Centre for Synthetic Biology highly multi- and interdisciplinary covering computational modelling and machine learning approaches; automated platform development and genetic circuit engineering ; multi-cellular and multi-organismal interactions, including gene drive and genome engineering; metabolic engineering; in vitro/cell-free synthetic biology; engineered phages and directed evolution; and biomimetics, biomaterials and biological engineering.

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Dahalan:2019:10.1371/journal.ppat.1008063,
author = {Dahalan, FA and Churcher, TS and Windbichler, N and Lawniczak, MKN},
doi = {10.1371/journal.ppat.1008063},
journal = {PLoS Pathogens},
pages = {1--19},
title = {The male mosquito contribution towards malaria transmission: Mating influences the Anopheles female midgut transcriptome and increases female susceptibility to human malaria parasites.},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1008063},
volume = {15},
year = {2019}
}

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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Mating causes dramatic changes in female physiology, behaviour, and immunity in many insects, inducing oogenesis, oviposition, and refractoriness to further mating. Females from the Anopheles gambiae species complex typically mate only once in their lifetime during which they receive sperm and seminal fluid proteins as well as a mating plug that contains the steroid hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone. This hormone, which is also induced by blood-feeding, plays a major role in activating vitellogenesis for egg production. Here we show that female Anopheles coluzzii susceptibility to Plasmodium falciparum infection is significantly higher in mated females compared to virgins. We also find that mating status has a major impact on the midgut transcriptome, detectable only under sugar-fed conditions: once females have blood-fed, the transcriptional changes that are induced by mating are likely masked by the widespread effects of blood-feeding on gene expression. To determine whether increased susceptibility to parasites could be driven by the additional 20E that mated females receive from males, we mimicked mating by injecting virgin females with 20E, finding that these females are significantly more susceptible to human malaria parasites than virgin females injected with the control 20E carrier. Further RNAseq was carried out to examine whether the genes that change upon 20E injection in the midgut are similar to those that change upon mating. We find that 79 midgut-expressed genes are regulated in common by both mating and 20E, and 96% (n = 76) of these are regulated in the same direction (up vs down in 20E/mated). Together, these findings show that male Anopheles mosquitoes induce changes in the female midgut that can affect female susceptibility to P. falciparum. This implies that in nature, males might contribute to malaria transmission in previously unappreciated ways, and that vector control strategies that target males may have additional benefits towards reducing transm
AU  - Dahalan,FA
AU  - Churcher,TS
AU  - Windbichler,N
AU  - Lawniczak,MKN
DO  - 10.1371/journal.ppat.1008063
EP  - 19
PY  - 2019///
SN  - 1553-7366
SP  - 1
TI  - The male mosquito contribution towards malaria transmission: Mating influences the Anopheles female midgut transcriptome and increases female susceptibility to human malaria parasites.
T2  - PLoS Pathogens
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1008063
UR  - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31697788
UR  - https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1008063
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/75088
VL  - 15
ER  -