VecPrime: immune priming to vaccinate vectors (360G-Wellcome-212450_Z_18_Z)

Mosquito-borne diseases are hugely harmful to people and livestock. Understanding how the mosquito vectors’ immune system resists pathogen infection is crucial to understanding and controlling these infectious diseases. Despite lacking the vertebrate adaptive immune system, insects are able to retain memory of their immunological history through a poorly understood phenomenon known as immune priming. We have developed a method to effectively ‘vaccinate’ mosquitoes against the globally important mosquito-borne West Nile virus (WNV). Here, we propose to expand on our findings to understand the mechanisms and fundamental evolutionary principles behind immune memory in a medically relevant vector system. By using a powerful combination of experimental approaches we will: 1) identify the degree to which mosquito priming varies across mosquito vectored viruses, 2) test whether priming offers cross-protection against other viruses, 3) identify candidate genes responsible for priming using RNAseq, and 4) determine whether cellular responses are necessary for immune priming. Taken together, the results will identify the extent, specificity and mechanisms of priming in mosquitoes and establish a system to explore whether priming could serve as a form of disease control across a wider range of medically and agriculturally important disease vectors.