Volunteer for NIAID-funded clinical studies related to Dengue
Fever on ClinicalTrials.gov. In a new study, NIAID-funded
scientists at the University of California, Riverside, found
that reducing levels of a single small RNA, miR-275, in the
mosquito Aedes aegypti can stop important metabolic and
reproductive functions. A. aegypti mosquitoes transmit the
dengue and Chikungunya viruses, so the new findings could have
the potential for disrupting the mosquito’s ability to cause
human disease. The study was published in December 2010 in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The mosquito’s
genome contains thousands of small, noncoding RNA strands, which
affect the production of proteins that regulate development,
cell growth and reproduction. MicroRNAs, a type of small RNA
that is usually 20-25 base pairs long, operate by binding to
messenger RNA and disrupting their translation into protein
products. We found that microRNA plays a critical role in the
regulatory vital functions of the mosquito as a