The Molecular Biology of Insect Disease Vectors

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxv

   PDF

2. Care and Maintenance of Insect Colonies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Care and maintenance of anopheline mosquito colonies

      • Mark Q. Benedict

      Pages 3-12

   3. Care and maintenance of Aedes mosquito colonies

      • Leonard E. Munstermann

      Pages 13-20

   4. Care and maintenance of phlebotomine sandfly colonies

      • Govind B. Modi

      Pages 21-30

   5. Care and maintenance of blackfly colonies

      • Eddie W. Cupp, Frank B. Ramberg

      Pages 31-40

   6. Care and maintenance of tsetse colonies

      • Ron H. Gooding, Udo Feldmann, Alan S. Robinson

      Pages 41-55

   7. Care and maintenance of triatomine colonies

      • Patricia de Azambuja, Eloi S. Garcia

      Pages 56-64

3. Experimental Infection of Insect Vectors

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 65-65

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   2. Infection of mosquitoes with rodent malaria

      • Robert E. Sinden

      Pages 67-91

   3. Infection of mosquitoes with primate malaria

      • William E. Collins

      Pages 92-100

   4. Infection of mosquitoes with filaria

      • Harold Townson

      Pages 101-111

   5. Infection of phlebotomine sandflies with Leishmania

      • Paul A. Bates

      Pages 112-120

   6. Infection of blackflies with Onchocerca

      • Albert E. Bianco, Peter J. Ham

      Pages 121-135

   7. Infection of tsetse with Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense and T. b. gambiense

      • Ian Maudlin

      Pages 136-145

   8. Infection of triatomines with Trypanosoma cruzi

      • Eloi S. Garcia, Patricia de Azambuja

      Pages 146-155

4. Basic Methods in Isolating, Cloning and Characterizing Nucleic Acids and their Products

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 157-157

      PDF

   2. Isolation of genomic DNA

      • Christos Louis

      Pages 159-163

   3. Isolation and analysis of RNA from insect vectors

      • Margaret A. Hughes

      Pages 164-171

   4. Determination of insect genome size and complexity by reassociation kinetics

      • Melanie J. Palmer, William C. Black IV

      Pages 172-194

Only one generation ago, entomology was a proudly isolated discipline. In Comstock Hall, the building of the Department of Entomology at Cornell University where I was first introduced to experimental science in the laboratory of Tom Eisner, those of us interested in the chemistry of life felt like interlopers. In the 35 years that have elapsed since then, all of biology has changed, and entomology with it. Arrogant molecular biologists and resentful classical biologists might think that what has happened is a hostile take-over of biology by molecular biology. But they are wrong. More and more we now understand that the events were happier and much more exciting, amounting to a new synthesis. Molecular Biology, which was initially focused on the simplest of organisms, bacteria and viruses, broke out of its confines after the initial fundamental questions were answered - the structure of DNA, the genetic code, the nature of regulatory genes - and, importantly, as its methods became more and more generally applicable. The recombinant DNA revo­ lution of the 1970s, the development of techniques for sequencing macromolecules, the polymerase chain reaction, new molecular methods of genetic analysis, all brought molecular biology face to face with the infinite complexity and the exuber­ ant diversity of life. Molecular biology itself stopped being an isolated diScipline, pre­ occupied with the universal laws of life, and became an approach to addressing fas­ cinating specific problems from every field of biology.

• biology
• development
• genome mapping
• molecular biology
• molecular techniques
• parasites

• Division of Molecular Biology and Immunology, Wolfson Unit of Molecular Genetics, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK

  Julian M. Crampton

• Division of Parasitic Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, USA

  C. Ben Beard

• Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Foundation of Research and Technology, Hellas and Department of Biology, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece

  Christos Louis

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