Establishment of a colony of Anopheles darlingi from French Guiana for vector competence studies on malaria transmission

Nicolas Puchot (1) , Marie-Thérèse Lecoq (1) , Romuald Carinci (2) , Jean Bernard Duchemin (2) , Mathilde Gendrin (3) , Catherine Bourgouin (1)

1 Génétique fonctionnelle des maladies infectieuses - Functional Genetics of Infectious Diseases
2 Institut Pasteur de la Guyane
3 Département Parasites et Insectes vecteurs - Department of Parasites and Insect Vectors

Anopheles darlingi is a major vector of both Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax in South and Central America including French Guiana. However, the vector competence and physiology of this mosquito species have been scarcely studied due to difficulties in rearing it in the laboratory. Here, we report the successful establishment of a robust colony, from a mosquito collection in French Guiana. We describe our mosquito colonization procedure with relevant information on environmental conditions, mating ability, larval development, and survival, recorded over the first six critical generations. Experimental infection showed that our An. darlingi colony has a moderate permissiveness to in vitro produced gametocytes of the P. falciparum NF54 strain originating from Africa. This colony, which has reached its 21st generation, will allow further characterization of An. darlingi life-history traits and of Plasmodium –mosquito interactions with South American malaria parasites.

Keywords: Anopheles darlingi colony rearing Plasmodium susceptibility French Guiana; Anopheles darlingi; colony; rearing; Plasmodium; susceptibility; French Guiana

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Animal biology; Invertebrate Zoology

Nicolas Puchot, Marie-Thérèse Lecoq, Romuald Carinci, Jean Bernard Duchemin, Mathilde Gendrin, et al.. Establishment of a colony of Anopheles darlingi from French Guiana for vector competence studies on malaria transmission. Frontiers in Tropical Diseases, 2022, 3, pp.949300. ⟨10.3389/fitd.2022.949300⟩. ⟨hal-03960688⟩