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Science 28 April 2006:
Vol. 312. no. 5773, pp. 577 - 579
DOI: 10.1126/science.1124153
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Reports

Natural Malaria Infection in Anopheles gambiae Is Regulated by a Single Genomic Control Region

Michelle M. Riehle,1* Kyriacos Markianos,2* Oumou Niaré,3 Jiannong Xu,1 Jun Li,1 Abdoulaye M. Touré,3 Belco Podiougou,3 Frederick Oduol,1 Sory Diawara,3 Mouctar Diallo,3 Boubacar Coulibaly,3 Ahmed Ouatara,3 Leonid Kruglyak,4 Sékou F. Traoré,3 Kenneth D. Vernick1{dagger}

We surveyed an Anopheles gambiae population in a West African malaria transmission zone for naturally occurring genetic loci that control mosquito infection with the human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. The strongest Plasmodium resistance loci cluster in a small region of chromosome 2L and each locus explains at least 89% of parasite-free mosquitoes in independent pedigrees. Together, the clustered loci form a genomic Plasmodium-resistance island that explains most of the genetic variation for malaria parasite infection of mosquitoes in nature. Among the candidate genes in this chromosome region, RNA interference knockdown assays confirm a role in Plasmodium resistance for Anopheles Plasmodium-responsive leucine-rich repeat 1 (APL1), encoding a leucine-rich repeat protein that is similar to molecules involved in natural pathogen resistance mechanisms in plants and mammals.

1 Center for Microbial and Plant Genomics and Department of Microbiology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108, USA.
2 Program in Computational Biology, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, 1100 Fairview Avenue North, M2-B876, Seattle, WA 98109, USA.
3 Département d'Epidémiologie des Affectations Parasitaires, Université de Bamako, Boîte Postale 1805, Bamako, Mali.
4 Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Carl Icahn Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.

* These authors contributed equally to this work.

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: kvernick{at}umn.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)