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From: gwilliam@crc.ac.uk (Gary Williams x3294)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Vaccine for insect-carried diseases
Keywords: malaria insect vaccine disease
Message-ID: <395@carbon.crc.ac.uk>
Date: 11 Jan 91 14:29:48 GMT
Organization: MRC Human Genome Mapping Project Resource Centre, Harrow, U.K.
Lines: 27


Has anyone thought of turning the problem of producing a vaccine against
insect-carried diseases like malaria on its head and thought of
producing a vaccine against the cells on the inside of the stylet of
mosquitoes/tse-tse fly/etc. ?

The intended effect is that when the target insect feeds on a vaccinated
individual, the stylet quickly gets gummed up.

Problems that I can see are:

This doesn't actually protect the vaccinated individual from the disease
organism. 

It only decreases the population of the target insect species.  There
would have to be a separate vaccine for each species of mosquito etc. 

There may be polymorphism within the target species for the antigen
in the stylet being acted on by the vaccine. (But this is true of
any vaccine).


-- 
GARY WILLIAMS,  Computing Services Section,  Janet:       G.Williams@UK.AC.CRC
MRC-CRC & Human Genome Mapping Centre,       Internet:    G.Williams@CRC.AC.UK
Watford Rd, HARROW, Middx, HA1 3UJ, UK       EARN/Bitnet: G.Williams%CRC@UKACRL
Tel 081-869 3294   Fax 081-423 1275     Usenet: ...!mcsun!ukc!mrccrc!G.Williams