An international team of researchers has deciphered the genetic
building blocks of the third major disease causing mosquito, an
insect that transmits three different diseases from sub-Saharan
Africa all the way to the U.S. state of California. Culex
quinquefasciatus, or more simply the Southern House mosquito, is
the third major disease-carrying mosquito to have its DNA
decoded. The mosquito is responsible for three parasitic
illnesses -- West Nile virus, a brain infection called
encephalitis and lymphatic filariasis, which experts say causes
120 million infections and over 40 million cases of
elephantiasis each year. Filariasis worms infect the lymphatic
system, including the pea-sized glands that are part of the
body's immune system, and can cause massive swellings of the
limbs. Anopholes gambiae, which transmits the malaria parasite
throughout Africa and Asia, was genetically sequenced in 2002,
followed in 2007 by Anopholes aegypti (uh-JIP-tie), a mosquito
that transmits Yellow and Dengue fever. Peter Aren