BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Vaccines and Molecular Therapeutics
This article is part of the Research TopicInnovative Immunological Strategies for Overcoming Antimicrobial Resistance and Enhancing Vaccine DevelopmentView all 11 articles
Plasmodium vivax infection-driven modulation of Sterol Carrier Protein reveals a metabolic link to reproductive physiology in Anopheles stephensi
Provisionally accepted
- ICMR - National Institute of Malaria Research, New Delhi, India
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Mosquitoes rely exclusively on blood-derived sterols, transported by Sterol Carrier Protein (SCP), for reproduction and metabolic regulation. SCP expression is strongly induced after blood feeding and dynamically modulated during Plasmodium vivax infection—upregulated in the midgut and salivary glands but suppressed in hemocytes— indicating that parasite infection modulate the host sterol transport and metabolism. RNAi-mediated knockdown of SCP significantly reduced mosquito fecundity, underscoring its vital role in reproductive physiology. These findings highlight SCP as a key metabolic regulator linking nutrient uptake to reproductive outcome while its plasmodium infection driven modulation may facilitate the parasite growth . While reproduction remains the primary physiological outcome, the metabolic modulation of SCP during infection also points to it as a possible transmission-blocking target in integrated malaria control strategies.
Keywords: mosquito, Sterol-carrier Protein, Nutritional physiology, Anti-PlasmodiumImmunity, Reproduction
Received: 11 Sep 2025; Accepted: 21 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yadav, Kumari, Sankala, RANI, Sharma, Tevatiya and Dixit. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Rajnikant Dixit, dixit2k@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.