The role of the RNAi pathway in mosquito immunity

In this project we study the role of the mosquito RNAi pathway in the antiviral response. We show that the RNAi pathway is the major antiviral response in disease vector mosquito Aedes aegypti. We have developed a Dicer 2 (Dcr-2) null mutant mosquito that is used in these studies. Small RNA reads are derived from Dcr-2 null or wild type sibling Aedes aegypti infected with either Sindbis virus (SINV; 96h), yellow fever virus Asibi (YFV; 96h), dengue virus serotype 2 (DENV-2; 48h) or dengue virus serotype 4 (DENV-4; 48h). RNA was extracted from pooled mosquitoes (n=5) for each of the 3 biological replicates. Small RNA library preparation and sequencing was performed by Scripps Research Next Generation Sequencing Core.