With rising cases for the first time in years, malaria remains a significant public health burden. The sexual stage of the malaria parasite infects mosquitoes to transmit malaria from host to host. Hence, an infected mosquito plays an essential role in malaria transmission. Plasmodium falciparum is the most dominant and dangerous malaria pathogen. Previous studies identified a sexual stage-specific protein 16 (Pfs16) localized to the parasitophorous vacuole membrane. Here, we elucidate the function of Pfs16 during malaria transmission. Our structural analysis identified Pfs16 as an alpha-helical integral membrane protein with one transmembrane domain connecting to two regions across parasitophorous vacuole membrane. ELISA assays showed that insect cell-expressed recombinant Pfs16 (rPfs16) interacted with Anopheles gambiae midguts, and microscopy found that rPfs16 was bound to midgut epithelial cells. Transmission-blocking assays demonstrated that polyclonal antibodies against Pfs16 significantly reduced the number of oocysts in mosquito midguts. However, on the contrary, feeding rPfs16 increased the number of oocysts. Further analysis revealed that Pfs16 reduced the activity of mosquito midgut caspase 3/7, a key enzyme in the mosquito Jun-N-terminal kinase immune pathway. We conclude that Pfs16 facilitates parasites to invade mosquito midguts by actively silencing the mosquito's innate immunity through its interaction with the midgut epithelial cells. Therefore, Pfs16 is a potential target to control malaria transmission.
Keywords: JNK pathway; Pfs16; immune modulation; innate immunity; malaria; mosquito; vector-borne diseases.
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