The role of gene splicing, gene amplification and regulation in mosquito insecticide resistance

The primary routes of insecticide resistance in all insects are alterations in the insecticide target sites or changes in the rate at which the insecticide is detoxified. Three enzyme systems, glutathione S–transferases, esterases and monooxygenases, are involved in the detoxification of the four major insecticide classes. These enzymes act by rapidly metabolizing the insecticide to non–toxic products, or by rapidly binding and very slowly turning over the insecticide (sequestration). In Culex mosquitoes, the most common organophosphate insecticide resistance mechanism is caused by co–amplification of two esterases. The amplified esterases are differentially regulated, with three times more Estβ2 1 being produced than Estα2 1 . Cis –acting regulatory sequences associated with these esterases are under investigation. All the amplified esterases in different Culex species act through sequestration. The rates at which they bind with insecticides are more rapid than those for their non–amplified counterparts in the insecticide–susceptible insects. In contrast, esterase–based organophosphate resistance in Anopheles is invariably based on changes in substrate specificities and increased turnover rates of a small subset of insecticides. The up–regulation of both glutathione S–transferases and monooxygenases in resistant mosquitoes is due to the effect of a single major gene in each case. The products of these major genes up–regulate a broad range of enzymes. The diversity of glutathione S–transferases produced by Anopheles mosquitoes is increased by the splicing of different 5' ends of genes, with a single 3' end, within one class of this enzyme family. The trans –acting regulatory factors responsible for the up–regulation of both the monooxygenase and glutathione S–transferases still need to be identified, but the recent development of molecular tools for positional cloning in Anopheles gambiae now makes this possible.