Malaria causes more than a million deaths a year in Africa alone. Attempts to combat the disease have been frustrated on two fronts: acquisition of resistance to antimalarial agents by the parasite itself and acquisition of resistance to insecticides by its mosquito vector,
Weill et al. compared the sequence of an organophosphate target (the acetylcholinesterase gene ace-1) in a resistant and susceptible strain of the mosquito Culex pipiens — vector of the West Nile virus. Analysis revealed one of 27 nucleotide differences resulting in a G119S substitution that they localized to a position near the active site of the enzyme. Further analysis confirmed ...
