Identification of the extracellular metallo-endopeptidases ADAM and ADAMTS in the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti

The mosquito Aedes aegypti is a major vector for dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and chikungunya (CHIKV) viruses, which cause significant morbidity and mortality among human populations in the tropical regions of the world. Following ingestion of a viremic bloodmeal from a vertebrate host, an arbovirus needs to productively infect the midgut epithelium of the mosquito. De novo synthesized virions then exit the midgut by traversing the surrounding basal lamina (BL) in order to disseminate to secondary tissues and infect those. Once the salivary glands are infected, the virus is transmitted to a vertebrate host along with saliva released during probing of the mosquito. Midgut tissue distention due to bloodmeal ingestion leads to remodeling of the midgut structure and facilitates virus dissemination from the organ. Previously, we described the matrix-metalloproteinases (MMP) of Ae. aegypti as zinc ion dependent endopeptidases (Metzincins) and showed MMP activity during midgut BL rearrangement as a consequence of bloodmeal ingestion and subsequent digestion thereby affecting arbovirus dissemination from the midgut.