Mosquitos are being engineered so that they can be used as flying syringes, capable of injecting malarial proteins into human subjects as an immunization strategy. - GreenMedInfo Summary

We are producing a transgenic mosquito, a flying syringe, to deliver a vaccine protein to human beings via the saliva the mosquito deposits in the skin while biting. The mosquito produces a vaccine protein in the salivary gland (SG) and deposits the protein into the host's skin when it takes the host's blood. We chose circumsporozoite protein (CSP), currently the most promising malaria vaccine candidate, to be expressed in the SG of Anopheles stephensi. To transform the mosquitoes, plasmid containing the CSP gene under the promoter of female SG-specific gene, as well as the green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene under the promoter of 3xP3 as a selection marker in the eyes, was injected into more than 400 eggs. As a result, five strains of GFP-expressing mosquitoes were established, and successful CSP expression in the SG was confirmed in one strain. The estimated amount of CSP in the SG of the strain was 40 ng per mosquito. We allowed the CSP-expressing mosquitoes to feed on mice to induce the production of anti-CSP antibody. However, the mice did not develop anti-CSP antibody even after transgenic mosquitoes had bitten them several times. We consider that CSP in the SG was not secreted properly into the saliva. Further techniques and trials are required in order to realize vaccine-delivering mosquitoes.