ABSTRACT
Mosquitoes are important vectors of a number of disease agents including malarial and filarial parasites as well as many types of viruses. A wide spectrum of both RNA-mediated and DNA-mediated transposable elements (TEs) have been discov ered in the African malaria mosquito, Anopheles gambiae, and other mosquito species. Mos quito TEs are potentially useful as tools for genetic manipulation, or as markers for population studies. Such genetic and population studies are relevant to the long-term strategy to control mosquito-borne infectious diseases through the introduction and spread of refractory mosqui toes in natural populations. Here we present an overview of the characteristics of mosquito TEs. We highlight several mosquito TEs that appear to be transpositionally active and a few newly discovered elements that offer interesting perspectives onTE diversity, classification, and transposition. TE display, a PCR-based genome scan method, is also described in the context of uncovering polymorphism at TE insertion sites and detecting new transposition events. We conclude the chapter oudining questions that are of fundamental and applied significance in mosquito TE research and providing promising new research avenues in light of a growing number of mosquito genome projects and systems biology methods.
