Mediterranean Bacteria May Harbor New Mosquito Solution
American Society for Microbiology
2025.07.07
Mosquito-borne diseases kill more than 700,000 people every year, according to the World Health Organization, and the mosquitos that spread the disease are difficult to control. Most species have developed resistance to all major classes of synthetic insecticides, many of which pose both environmental and health risks.
Biopesticides, derived from living organisms, may mitigate chemical insecticide resistance and offer an environmentally friendly way forward. This week in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, researchers report that bacterial isolates collected from the Mediterranean island of Crete act as insecticides against Culex pipiens molestus mosquitoes, which can transmit human pathogens such as West Nile virus and Rift Valley fever virus. In lab tests, extracts containing metabolites produced by 3 of the isolates killed 100% of mosquito larvae within 24 hours of exposure.
Those metabolites might guide the development of biopesticides with minimal ecological side effects, the researchers noted. “They degrade more quickly in the environment and therefore don’t accumulate, and they often don’t kill such a wide range of different insect species as chemical insecticides,” said George Dimopoulos, Ph.D., a molecular entomologist and microbiologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) in Crete. He co-led the new study, conducted in Crete, together with molecular biologist John Vontas, Ph.D., at the IMBB.
Mosquito-borne diseases kill more than 700,000 people every year, according to the World Health Organization, and the mosquitos that spread the disease are difficult to control. Most species have developed resistance to all major classes of synthetic insecticides, many of which pose both environmental and health risks.
Biopesticides, derived from living organisms, may mitigate chemical insecticide resistance and offer an environmentally friendly way forward. This week in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, researchers report that bacterial isolates collected from the Mediterranean island of Crete act as insecticides against Culex pipiens molestus mosquitoes, which can transmit human pathogens such as West Nile virus and Rift Valley fever virus. In lab tests, extracts containing metabolites produced by 3 of the isolates killed 100% of mosquito larvae within 24 hours of exposure.
Those metabolites might guide the development of biopesticides with minimal ecological side effects, the researchers noted. “They degrade more quickly in the environment and therefore don’t accumulate, and they often don’t kill such a wide range of different insect species as chemical insecticides,” said George Dimopoulos, Ph.D., a molecular entomologist and microbiologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) in Crete. He co-led the new study, conducted in Crete, together with molecular biologist John Vontas, Ph.D., at the IMBB.
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