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Carbon dioxide (CO(2)) is an important long-range chemosensory cue used by blood-feeding female mosquitoes to find their hosts. The CO(2) receptor in Drosophila melanogaster was previously determined to be a heterodimer comprised of two gustatory receptor (Gr) proteins, DmGr21a and DmGr63a. In the mosquito Aedes aegypti, two putative orthologous genes, AaGr1 and AaGr3, were identified in the genome database, along with an apparent paralogue of AaGr1, AaGr2. In this study, RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated gene knockdown of either AaGr1 or AaGr3 resulted in a loss of CO(2) sensitivity in both male and female mosquitoes, suggesting that these two proteins, like the Drosophila orthologues, function as a heterodimer. RNAi-mediated knockdown of AaGr2 expression had no impact on CO(2) reception. All three Gr genes were expressed in the maxillary palps of both Ae. aegypti and the West Nile virus vector mosquito, Culex pipiens quinquefasciatus. Interestingly, expression of the two CO(2) receptor genes was not equivalent in the two sexes and the implications of differential sex expression of the CO(2) receptor in different species are discussed. The functional identification of the CO(2) receptor in a mosquito could prove invaluable in the strategic design of compounds that disrupt the mosquito's ability to find hosts.

Members of the hAT transposable element family are mobile in non-host insect species and have been used as transformation vectors in some of these species. We report that the Queensland fruit fly, Bactrocera tryoni, contains at least two types of insect hAT elements called Homer and a Homer-like element (HLE). The Homer element is 3789 bp in size and contains 12-bp imperfect inverted terminal repeats. The Homer element contains a long open reading frame (ORF) that encodes a putative transposase. Three different copies of this long ORF were recovered from the B. tryoni genome and, upon transcription and translation in an in vitro system, all produced transposase. The HLE is an incomplete element since no 3' inverted terminal repeat (ITR) was found. Homer and the HLE are as related to one another as either is to the other insect hAT elements such as Hermes, hobo, hermit and hopper. The structure and distribution of these two Homer elements is described.

Resistance to the organophosphate insecticide, malathion, in a strain of Culex tarsalis mosquitoes is due to increased activity of a malathion carboxylesterase (MCE). To determine whether resistance was due to a qualitative or quantitative change in the MCE, the enzyme was purified from both malathion-resistant and -susceptible mosquitoes. Enzyme kinetic measurements revealed that the two strains have one MCE in common, but resistant mosquitoes also have a unique MCE which hydrolyses malathion 18 times faster. Interestingly, this MCE does not hydrolyse alpha-naphthyl acetate, a substrate commonly used to detect increased levels of esterases in other organophosphate-resistant insects. Unlike the over-produced esterase of some related mosquito species, each MCE in C. tarsalis accounts for only a small fraction (0.015%) of the total extractable protein in either strain. Therefore, resistance in these insects is due to the presence of a qualitatively different enzyme, and not to a quantitative increase of a non-specific esterase. This study therefore demonstrates that the underlying biochemical mechanisms of insecticide resistance in one insect cannot necessarily be predicted from those of another, even closely related species.