The use of insecticides has been central to the fight against malaria, a disease that causes annually 665,000 deaths most in sub-Saharan Africa
[1]. Pyrethroids (PYs) are the choice of insecticides for indoor-residual spray (IRS) and impregnating bednets because they meet the low toxicity and high efficacy requirements
[2]. The extensive use of PYs imposes strong selection pressures on mosquito populations for increased resistance. Indeed, PYs resistance and cross-resistance between PYs and DDT have been detected in Africa
[3]. As a consequence, insecticide resistance management is crucial for the success of malaria control, and subsequently, to promote economic development of malaria endemic countries. A key element of resistance management is the determination of resistance mechanisms in the malaria vectors
[4].
The currently recognized PY resistance mechanisms in
Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto, the primary malaria vector in sub-Saharan Africa, include a mutation in region II of the
para-type sodium channel gene, that affects the affinity with which the insecticide binds and causes knockdown resistance (
kdr) (target site resistance)
[5],
[6].
Kdr resistance is due to a single-base pair change that results in either a leucine-phenylalanine (L1014F) or a leucine-serine (L1014S) substitution at codon 1014 of the sodium channel gene
[5],
[6].
Kdr mutations are spatially widespread in Africa
[3] and have reached high frequency levels. For example, the L1014F mutation is close to fixation in Ghana
[7] and higher than 80% in Cameroon
[8] and Burkina Faso
[9], and the L1014S mutation has reached a frequency of more than 80% in Western Kenya
[10]. The high
kdr allele frequency likely results from wide-spread use of insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs)
[10],
[11] and also from the intensive use of DDT and permethrin for control of cotton and rice pests in rural areas and for mosquito control in urban areas
[12] because PYs used for agricultural purposes may leak into mosquito breeding sites and thus pose a selection pressure at the larval stage
[11],
[13]–
[15]. However, the correlation between
kdr allele frequency and PY resistance at the population level is low
[10],
[16],
[17] and
kdr allele frequency is not sufficient to predict the effectiveness of ITNs
[18]. These observations support the conclusion that PY resistance involves mechanisms other than
kdr mutations
[17]. Other proposed insecticide resistance mechanisms includes overproduction of carboxyl-esterases, glutathione-S-transferases and P450-dependent monoxygenases that increase the rate of insecticide detoxification (metabolic resistance)
[19]. Additionally, the thickening of cuticle and modification in the digestive tract lining may prevent or reduce insecticide penetration and absorption (penetration resistance)
[3],
[20],
[21].
The understanding of the molecular mechanisms of insecticide resistance in
An. gambiae has progressed rapidly with technological advancement. A number of techniques have been used in the research of insecticide resistance, including gene amplification-based techniques for the identification of
kdr alleles
[5],
[6]; quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis that have identified genetic loci linked to insecticide resistance
[22]–
[24]; and microarray techniques that study genome-wide expression profiling
[20],
[25]–
[27]. However, microarrays are limited to the groups of genes spotted on the array and provide only relative expression levels. The recent development of RNA-seq technology is an improved method for gene-expression studies
[28]. RNA-seq allows a holistic view of the transcriptome at a defined state, provides single-nucleotide level resolution and absolute rather than relative gene expression measurements. In mosquito, RNA-seq has been applied for
de novo transcriptome assemblies in
An. funestus
[29] and
Ae. aegypti
[30], and expression profiles at specific life stages and tissues
[31]–
[34], but no attempt has been made to utilize this advanced technique to study the mechanism of resistance to insecticides in
Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes.
We examined here the expression profile of deltamethrin-susceptible and resistant mosquitoes, as defined through the standard WHO tube bioassay
[35]. Both resistant and susceptible mosquitoes derive from wild larvae with the same genetic background collected in Western Kenya. We also estimated the frequency of
kdr mutation in
An. gambiae sensu latu mosquitoes in association with insecticide usage in Western Kenya.