Electrophoretic Analysis of Salivary Gland Proteins of Adult Culex antennatus (Diptera: Culicidae)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Entomology Department, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Egypt

2 Zoology Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Egypt

3 Biology Department, College of Science, Aljouf Univ.,Sakaka, KSA

4 Zoology Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Egypt.

Abstract

Salivary glands of mosquitoes play an important role in food ingestion and digestion as well as transmission of pathogens. Mosquitoes are able to adapt to feed on blood by salivary glands which secrete proteins that work against the haemostasis process. So, the identification of these protein contents in the salivary glands of Culex antennatus (males and females) is the aim of this study. In the present study, protein banding pattern (Native and SDS PAGE) of salivary glands of adult Culex antennatus (un-fed, sugar-fed, starved and blood-fed) was investigated. Males and females of Cx. antennatus were dissected and their salivary glands were collected at un-fed stage, 0-, 3-, 6-, 12- and 24- h after sugar feeding and starved stage. Female salivary glands were additionally collected at different stages of blood feeding (probing time, partial engorgement, full engorgement, 3-, 6-, 12-, 24-, 48- and 72- h. after blood meal and after oviposition. Results of native-PAGE demonstrated that there were differences in the overall protein banding pattern in salivary glands of males and females of Cx. antennatus in the cases of un-fed, sugar-fed and starved stages. Differences in salivary gland proteins were observed when comparing males of all stages, too.  Differences in salivary gland proteins were also noticed when comparing females of all stages. Furthermore, all blood-feeding stages of females showed differences in salivary gland proteins when compared to sugar-fed and starved females. Results of SDS-PAGE clarified that the molecular weight of the separated proteins (in all stages) ranged from 317.36 to 10.91 KDa. Differences were also observed between males and females in the cases of un-fed, sugar-fed and starved stages of Cx. antennatus

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