HARMLESS ERADICATION OF MOSQUITOES
According to the latest news published in the magazine Nature by an international consortium involving scientists from the Institute de Biologie Structurale of Universite Grenoble Alpes in France.
Mosquitoes are vector insects that cause numerous infectious diseases such as malaria, filariasis, chikungunya,zika etc.etc.The major problem of modern techniques of eradicating mosquitoes causes health hazards and environmental pollutions.
The question is is it possible to conduct the eradication without pollution. The answer is yes but one step ahead.
BinAB toxin produced by a human harmless bacterium in microcrystal form specifically kills the larvae and eggs of female Anopheles mosquitoes which causes malaria, and Culex mosquitoes which cause filariasis. But they are ineffective to kill the tiger mosquitoes (Aedes) which causes dengue, chikungunya, and zika.
To improve it to wider its lentivector spectrum it is necessary to have a molecular structural knowledge of the toxin. As it forms very small microcrystals in-unit nanometers and hence it was very difficult to get its pure recrystallized forms to study so for.
But now its structure has been published by scientists from France and the USA in the magazine Nature as mentioned above.
The name of the bacterium revealed is Bacillus sphaericus specifically targets the Anopheles and Culex mosquitoes without polluting the environments.
Many countries begin to use this method of eradicating mosquitos of malaria and filariasis.
Scientists are trying to broaden its spectrum of activity to cover other mosquitoes also including the Aedes which carries the infective viruses of dengue, chikungunya, and Zika.
To achieve this it is necessary to have knowledge of its structure.
X-ray crystallography is of no use as its use is limited to those of large crystallized proteins measuring around a tenth of a millimeter.
But the crystals of the toxin BinAB that develop in vivo measures only 10000th of a millimeter and once dissolve the toxin does not recrystallize.
The above-mentioned scientists from France and the USA now devised its structure by a newer method on nanocrystals.
They employed a new type of X-ray source, a free-electron laser, delivering ultra-short waves with high-intensity X-radiations. Now first time they revealed its structure which is about 300 nanometer. This raises hopes of solving structures and more complex nono crystals.
The toxin is produced by the bacterium when its food sources are diminished. When eaten by the mosquito larvae the bacterium dissolved and release the harmful BinAB toxins.Which then separates into BinA and BinB.BinB helps the toxin to get attached to the receptors of the gut cells and the BinA kills it.
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