The idea of using bacteria as a weapon sounds scary, but researchers may be able to turn a bacteria into a weapon against the mosquitoes that carry malaria. They have discovered two new strains of a bacteria in the strain of mosquito that carries malaria in most of Africa.
Malaria is a disease caused by a protozoa, a single celled microorganism that is spread by the bite of several different species of mosquitoes. Researchers from Germany, Sweden, and Austria have isolated two strains of Thorsellia bacteria: Thorsellia kenyensis and T. kandunguensis, from larvae of one type of mosquito, Anopheles arabiensis, which spreads malaria in sub-Saharan African.
According to the researchers, Thorsellia bacteria appear to be uniquely associated with mosquitoes. Strains of these bacteria have been isolated from mosquitoes in Brazil, India, and Iran, as well as in mosquitoes that spread West Nile Virus in the United States. They have only been found in disease-carrying mosquitoes and in the water where the mosquitoes hatch.
The goal is eventually to change the bacteria in a way that stops the development of the malaria protozoa. Malaria protozoa spend part of their life cycle in mosquitoes. "We are looking for bacteria that live in the mosquito gut and which grow quickly when the mosquito has taken a blood meal. The idea is to genetically modify these bacteria to produce substances that stop malaria parasite development," said Sebastian Hakansson, a researcher with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala and an author of the study.
Because Thorsellia bacteria are unique to mosquitoes, it is believed that a genetically modified version of such a bacteria would be unlikely to spread beyond the mosquitoes.
Malaria is one of the most deadly diseases on Earth. It causes up to 855,000 deaths per year, most of which are in Africa, according to the World Health Organization.
The research was published in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.
