DETECTION OF ANTIGENIC PROTEINS IN SALIVARY GLANDS OF FEMALE ARMIGERES SUBALBATUS MOSQUITO
Identification of mosquito salivary proteins is important because they modulate the host immune response leading to enhancement of arboviral infections. In this study the salivary proteins and the antigenic salivary proteins of the female Armigeres subalbatus mosquitoes in a wet zone in Sri Lanka had been studied. The salivary glands are paired organs each with three lobes situated in the thorax and the amounts of salivary gland proteins were revealed to be approximately 0.05 µg/pair gland. SDS-PAGE studies of salivary gland protein profiles of Armigeres subalbatus mosquito demonstrated minimum of ten major protein bands with molecular weight of 241, 79, 56, 35, 27, 22, 19, 15, 10, 8, kilodaltons. Antigenic salivary gland proteins of these mosquitoes were confirmed as 79, 56, 35, 27 and 22 kilodaltons by Western blotting using immunized rabbit serum. Further, a strong reaction of IgG antibodies against the 22 kDa antigenic salivary protein was detected by western blotting in randomly selected human sera samples collected from an area in which this mosquito population was high. This study may help further identifications of the most abundant salivary gland proteins in different species of mosquitoes and for further studies on molecular, biochemical and immunological aspects of salivary gland in disease transmission and blood feeding.