Discovery Of Key Mechanism Of DDT Resistance In Malarial Mosquitoes

University of Illinois researchers have identified a key detoxifying protein in Anopheles mosquitoes that metabolizes DDT, a synthetic insecticide used since World War II to control the mosquitoes that spread malaria.The new findings, described this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveal that a protein produced at elevated levels in DDT-resistant Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes actually metabolizes the insecticide.

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Filed under: Tropical on June 19th, 2008