pipiens is also a world-wide concern as it transmits several more diseases including lymphatic filariasis, Japanese encephalitis, Saint Louis encephalitis and Rift valley fever causing mortality and morbidity.
pipiens is amongst the most abundant mosquito species in the Mediterranean region and, apart from a major nuisance problem, it is the proven vector of the recent WNV epidemics/outbreaks in Europe which makes its control a public health priority. In Europe, over the last decades DFB has been used extensively in agriculture and forestry pest control and more recently also in mosquito control, being one of the main larvicides used for reducing the population size of the primary West Nile virus (WNV) vector Culex pipiens. It inhibits the chitin biosynthesis process and causes abortive molting by directly interacting with the chitin synthase 1 (CHS1) enzyme which is responsible for chitin synthesis in the insect cuticle. DFB is a chitin synthesis inhibitor and belongs to the Benzoyl(phenyl)urea family (BPUs-Group 15 based on the IRAC grouping system). Diflubenzuron (DFB) is among the most important larvicides used against mosquitoes, especially in Europe, where under the current European Union (EU) regulations, neurotoxic insecticides such as temephos are prohibited for use in mosquito breeding sites. Larviciding, targeting immature stage mosquitoes, is pivotal for managing nuisance and vector populations, and yet relies on a small number of available insecticides.
Mosquito and vector borne disease (VBD) control largely rely on the use of chemical insecticides. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: he authors have declared that no competing interests exist. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.įunding: JV and RB received funds from European Union’s Horizon (INFRAVEC) research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 731060 ( ). Received: DecemAccepted: ApPublished: May 1, 2020Ĭopyright: © 2020 Fotakis et al. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 14(5):Įditor: Paulo F. (2020) Identification and detection of a novel point mutation in the Chitin Synthase gene of Culex pipiens associated with diflubenzuron resistance. pipiens mosquitoes sampled from Greece, Portugal and Israel.Ĭitation: Fotakis EA, Mastrantonio V, Grigoraki L, Porretta D, Puggioli A, Chaskopoulou A, et al. In contrast to Italy and France, no DFB resistant mutations were identified in the Cx. The newly reported I1043F mutation was also identified in two heterozygote individuals from France (4.2% allelic frequency). pipiens populations collected in Northern Italy all but one had at least one of the three DFB mutations at allele frequencies reaching 93.3% for the I1043M, 64.8% for the I1043L and 10% for the I1043F.
pipiens mosquitoes from several Mediterranean countries, including Italy, France, Greece, Portugal and Israel. We monitored the presence and frequency of DFB mutations in Cx. pipiens mosquitoes surviving DFB doses largely exceeding the recommended field dose, raising concerns about the future efficient use of this insecticide. The frequency of the I1043F mutation was found to be substantially higher in Cx. This mutation has also been found in agricultural pests and has been functionally validated with genome editing in Drosophila, showing to confer striking levels (>15,000 fold) of DFB resistance. Here we report the identification of a third mutation at the same I1043 position of the CHS gene resulting in the substitution of Isoleucine to Phenylalanine (I1043F).
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