Resistance to pirimiphos-methyl in West African Anopheles is spreading via duplication and introgression of the Ace1 locus
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Date
2021
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
PLOS
Abstract
Vector population control using insecticides is a key element of current strategies to prevent
malaria transmission in Africa. The introduction of effective insecticides, such as the organo phosphate pirimiphos-methyl, is essential to overcome the recurrent emergence of resis tance driven by the highly diverse Anopheles genomes. Here, we use a population genomic
approach to investigate the basis of pirimiphos-methyl resistance in the major malaria vec tors Anopheles gambiae and A. coluzzii. A combination of copy number variation and a sin gle non-synonymous substitution in the acetylcholinesterase gene, Ace1, provides the key
resistance diagnostic in an A. coluzzii population from Coˆte d’Ivoire that we used for
sequence-based association mapping, with replication in other West African populations.
The Ace1 substitution and duplications occur on a unique resistance haplotype that evolved
in A. gambiae and introgressed into A. coluzzii, and is now common in West Africa primarily
due to selection imposed by other organophosphate or carbamate insecticides. Our findings
highlight the predictive value of this complex resistance haplotype for phenotypic resistance
and clarify its evolutionary history, providing tools to for molecular surveillance of the current
and future effectiveness of pirimiphos-methyl based interventions.
Description
Research Article