Sterile-Insect-Technique: Hormetic Ethanol Feeding results in Up-regulation of Antimicrobial Peptide Genes in X-ray-irradiated Aedes aegypti males.
The Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) has emerged as a promising new control strategy for reducing mosquito populations and controlling mosquito-borne diseases. Radiation treatments that are part of the SIT protocol, can decrease male mosquito fitness and curb the effectiveness of SIT. The incorporation of hormetic ethanol into the adult Aedes aegypti diet, prior to irradiation, has been shown to increase male longevity compared to mosquitoes fed on a standard sugar-water diet. Here we investigate the behavioral and gene expression changes that arise from feeding adult male A. aegypti a 5% ethanol diet over a seven-day period followed by X-ray irradiation at 50 Gy. The ethanol-treated group showed higher locomotor activity and lifespan than the control group. Whole body transcriptomics analyses at one, two, and three hours post-irradiation revealed hundreds of rapidly up- and down-regulated genes. Notably, a group of anti-microbial peptides are up-regulated two and three hours post-irradiation. Our results suggest that anti-microbial peptides, primed by ethanol feeding, may serve as radioprotectant genes. Our findings will help improve mosquito SIT protocols.