Hemocytes, the immune cells in mosquitoes, participate in immune defenses against pathogens including malaria parasites. Mosquito hemocytes can also be infected by arthropod-borne viruses but the pro- or anti-viral nature of this interaction is unknown. Although there has been progress on hemocyte characterization during pathogen infection in mosquitoes, the specific contribution of hemocytes to immune responses and the hemocyte-specific functions of immune genes and pathways remain unresolved due to the lack of genetic tools to manipulate gene expression in these cells specifically. Here, we used the Gal4-UAS system to characterize the activity of the Drosophila hemocyte-specific hemolectin promoter in the adults of Anopheles gambiae, the malaria mosquito. We established an hml-Gal4 driver line that we further crossed to a fluorescent UAS responder line, and examined the expression pattern in the adult progeny driven by the hml promoter. We show that the hml regulatory region drives hemocyte-specific transgene expression in a subset of hemocytes, and that transgene expression is triggered after a blood meal. The hml promoter drives transgene expression in differentiating prohemocytes as well as in differentiated granulocytes. Analysis of different immune markers in hemocytes in which the hml promoter drives transgene expression revealed that this regulatory region could be used to study phagocytosis as well as melanization. Finally, the hml promoter drives transgene expression in hemocytes in which o'nyong-nyong virus replicates. Altogether, the Drosophila hml promoter constitutes a good tool to drive transgene expression in hemocyte only and to analyze the function of these cells and the genes they express during pathogen infection in Anopheles gambiae.

中文翻译：

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使用果蝇的血凝素启动子在雌性疟疾蚊子中以血细胞为目标的基因表达。

血细胞（蚊子中的免疫细胞）参与针对包括疟原虫在内的病原体的免疫防御。蚊子的血细胞也可以被节肢动物传播的病毒感染，但这种相互作用的前病毒或抗病毒性质尚不清楚。尽管在蚊子病原体感染过程中已经对血细胞特征进行了研究，但是由于缺乏遗传工具来专门处理这些细胞中的基因，血细胞对免疫应答的特异性贡献以及免疫基因和途径的血细胞特异性功能仍未得到解决。 。在这里，我们使用了Gal4-UAS系统来表征冈比亚按蚊（疟疾蚊）成虫中果蝇血细胞特异性血凝素启动子的活性。我们建立了hml-Gal4驱动程序系，我们进一步将其与荧光UAS应答器系杂交，并检查了由hml启动子驱动的成年后代中的表达模式。我们显示，hml调节区驱动血细胞的子集中的特定于血细胞的转基因表达，并且在餐后触发转基因表达。hml启动子驱动分化的血细胞以及分化的粒细胞中的转基因表达。对hml启动子驱动转基因表达的血细胞中不同免疫标记物的分析显示，该调控区可用于研究吞噬作用和黑色素化。最终，hml启动子驱动o'nyong-nyong病毒复制的血细胞中的转基因表达。共，