– The botox used by humans doesn’t work on insects, but we’ve now found a variant of “botox” that is highly toxic to malaria mosquitoes.
How did you come upon this discovery?
– We met an American research group at a conference (pre-pandemic). They had sequenced the genome of a bacterium and found something exciting that they didn’t fully understand. I’ve long been very interested in botulinum neurotoxins and it was a great collaboration!
How come it works on mosquitoes in particular?
– The poison splits a protein that is necessary for the connection between nerves and muscles to work. The PMP1 poison has evolved so that it can specifically cleave the protein in a mosquito instead of a human. The poison can also be absorbed from the ‘belly’ of the mosquito, which is very different from that of mammals. For example, it is heavily alkaline instead of heavily acidic.
PMP1 is an environmentally friendly poison; can you explain what that means?
– PMP1 is a protein, so it breaks down in nature and leaves no artificial residues. Classic insecticides remain in nature for a long time and can have many undesirable environmental effects.
What is the next step in your research?
– We’ve recently mapped the three-dimensional structure of the entire poison and we will now investigate whether we can change PMP1 so that it can be used against other pests. We also want to identify the receptor to which the poison binds in the mosquito. Since PMP1 is the first botulinum toxin to be active against insects, there are lots of questions that we want to answer! In the end, I hope it becomes a poison that can be spread in stagnant water, specifically killing the larvae of the malaria mosquito and sparing other insects and the environment.