<i>TEP1</i> mutant mosquitoes are hypersusceptible to <i>P. berghei</i>.

<p>Mosquito females from five different homozygous mutant mosquito lines and from control parental lines were offered a blood meal on a <i>P. berghei</i>-infected mouse. Seven days after infection, the midgut was dissected and the number of oocysts developing in each midgut was evaluated. The statistical significance of differences in mean parasite numbers was measured with a Mann-Whitney test (mutant versus control) and with a Kruskall-Wallis test followed by Dunn’s post-test (to compare all groups in [d]). (a) M^∆T mosquitoes are compared to the two parental, non-mutant TALEN lines. (b) 4 different mutant lines are compared to the parental mosquito line that initially served to produce TALEN transgenic lines. This control line was verified to show the same level of susceptibility to <i>P. berghei</i> as the two TALEN daughter lines (not shown). In this experiment, three mutant lines showed significantly elevated parasite numbers compared to the control while the M^∆ct2 line did not, presumably due to a different physiological condition of this mosquito culture. In two independent experiments (c, d), we used mosquitoes of different genotypes marked with distinct fluorescence markers and cultured the larvae together in the same water to eliminate potential confounding factors due to rearing conditions. On the day of dissection, genotypes were separated on the basis of fluorescence. The same M^∆ct2 line shows significantly elevated parasite numbers. (d) Heterozygous M^∆ct2 mosquitoes are compared to control and homozygous M^∆ct2 mosquitoes: the susceptibility phenotype of the heterozygote is intermediate. (e) Control mosquitoes of the parental line, mosquitoes of the parental line injected with <i>TEP1</i> double-stranded RNA, and homozygous <i>TEP1</i> mutant mosquitoes of the M^∆T line are compared. TEP1 mutant and dsRNA-injected mosquitoes show comparable susceptibility to <i>P. berghei</i>.