Deactivating mosquito sperm: A new approach to control mosquito populations.

Researchers at UC Riverside have identified proteins responsible for activating mosquito sperm, which could be shut down to prevent them from fertilizing eggs. The study could help control populations of Culex, the common house mosquito that transmits brain-swelling encephalitis and West Nile Virus. The team isolated as many as 200 male mosquitoes from a larger population and extracted enough sperm from the tiny reproductive tracts for mass spectrometry equipment to detect and identify the proteins. This kind of protein profiling offers a path toward controlling mosquitoes that is more environmentally friendly than other methods that can have unintended, toxic effects.