Mosquitoes perceive their environment combining multimodal cues including vision, hearing, smelling, chemosensation, thermosensation and CO2 sensation. As some female mosquitoes require blood-meal to get the needed energy for oviposition, most research on host-seeking behaviour focuses on a single species with male vs. female differences.
Here we are exploring the evolution of the sensory system in mosquitoes using phylogenomics tools (Devilliers et al., 2025) and molecular biology methods (Devilliers et al., 2024), comparing both bood-feeding vs. non-blood feeding species, and sexes. The overarching goal of this project is to identify sensory modalities and genes involved in mating and host-seeking behaviour.
In this project we particularly focussed on vision evolution, combining phylogenomics, bulk RNA-seq in the eye of Anopheles gambiae, Toxorhynchites brevipalpis and Aedes aegypti, miscroscopy (HCR) and single-cell RNA-seq on the head of Anopheles gambiae (Devilliers et al., 2025) and Aedes aegypti (Goldman et al., 2025).
References
2025
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Hematophagy Generates a Convergent Genomic Signature in Mosquitoes and Sandflies
Julien Devilliers, Ben Warren, Ezio Rosato, Charalambos P Kyriacou, and Roberto Feuda
Genome Biology and Evolution, Mar 2025
Blood feeding (hematophagy) is widespread across Diptera (true flies), yet the underlying genetic basis remains poorly understood. Using phylogenomics, we show that four gene families associated with neuromodulation, immune responses, embryonic development, and iron metabolism have undergone independent expansions within mosquitoes and sandflies. Our findings illuminate the underlying genetic basis for blood-feeding adaptations in these important disease vectors.
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An Optimized SPLiT-Seq Protocol for Insects
Julien Devilliers, Elena Emili, Virginia Vanni, Jordi Solana, and Roberto Feuda
Mar 2025
Single-cell RNA-sequencing revolutionized our approach of transcriptomic studies, enabling to analyze gene expression across cell type in a tissue. Here we introduce an optimized cell dissociation and a Split Pool Ligation-based Transcriptome sequencing (SPLiT-seq) protocol to perform single-cell RNA-seq in insects. Up to 400,000 cells can be used as starting material within a single experiment.
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Mosquito Cell Atlas: A single-nucleus transcriptomic atlas of the adult Aedes aegypti mosquito
Olivia V. Goldman, Alexandra E. DeFoe, Yanyan Qi, Yaoyu Jiao, Shih-Che Weng, Leah Houri-Zeevi, Priyanka Lakhiani, Takeshi Morita, Jacopo Razzauti, Adriana Rosas-Villegas, Yael N. Tsitohay, Madison M. Walker, Ben R. Hopkins, Mosquito Cell Atlas Consortium, Omar S. Akbari, Laura B. Duvall, Helen White-Cooper, Trevor R. Sorrells, Roshan Sharma, Hongjie Li, Leslie B. Vosshall, and Nadav Shai
bioRxiv, Mar 2025
The female mosquito’s remarkable ability to hunt humans and transmit pathogens relies on her unique biology. Here, we present the Mosquito Cell Atlas (MCA), a comprehensive single-nucleus RNA sequencing dataset of more than 367,000 nuclei from 19 dissected tissues of adult female and male Aedes aegypti, providing cellular-level resolution of mosquito biology. We identify novel cell types and expand our understanding of sensory neuron organization of chemoreceptors to all sensory tissues. Our analysis uncovers male-specific cells and sexually dimorphic gene expression in the antenna and brain. In female mosquitoes, we find that glial cells in the brain, rather than neurons, undergo the most extensive transcriptional changes following blood feeding. Our findings provide insights into the cellular basis of mosquito behavior and sexual dimorphism. The MCA aims to serve as a resource for the vector biology community, enabling systematic investigation of cell-type specific expression across all mosquito tissues.Competing Interest StatementOmar S. Akbari is a founder of Agragene, Inc. and Synvect, Inc., with equity interest. The terms of this arrangement have been reviewed and approved by the University of California, San Diego in accordance with its conflict of interest policies.
2024
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Molecular correlates of swarming behaviour in Aedes aegypti males
Julien Devilliers, Hollie Marshall, Ben Warren, Charalambos P. Kyriacou, Luciana O. Araripe, Rafaela V. Bruno, Ezio Rosato, and Roberto Feuda
Biology Letters, Mar 2024
Mosquitoes are the deadliest vectors of diseases. They impose a huge health burden on human populations spreading parasites as disparate as protozoans (malaria), viruses (yellow fever and more) and nematodes (filariasis) that cause life-threatening conditions. In recent years, mating has been proposed as a putative target for population control. Mosquitoes mate mid-air, in swarms initiated by males and triggered by a combination of internal and external stimuli. As the number of females in a swarm is limited, there is intense competition among males, and they ‘retune’ their physiology for this demanding behaviour. There is limited knowledge on the ‘genetic reprogramming’ required to enable swarming. Interestingly, recent evidence indicates that the upregulation of circadian clock genes may be involved in the swarming of malaria mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles. Here, we use whole-head RNA-seq to identify gene expression changes in Aedes aegypti males that are engaged in swarming in a laboratory setting. Our results suggest that in preparation to swarming, males tend to lower some housekeeping functions while increasing remodelling of the cytoskeleton and neuronal connectivity; the transcription of circadian clock genes is unaffected.