Maternal lipid mobilization is essential for embryonic development in the malaria vector Anopheles gambiae

by Maurice A. Itoe, W. Robert Shaw, Iryna Stryapunina, Charles Vidoudez, Duo Peng, Esrah W. Du, Tasneem A. Rinvee, Naresh Singh, Yan Yan, Oleksandr Hulai, Kate E. Thornburg, Flaminia Catteruccia

Lipid metabolism is an essential component in reproductive physiology. While lipid mobilization has been implicated in the growth of Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasites in their Anopheles vectors, the role of this process in the reproductive biology of these mosquitoes remains elusive. Here, we show that impairing lipolysis in Anopheles gambiae, the major malaria vectors, leads to embryonic lethality. Embryos derived from females in which we silenced the triglyceride lipase AgTL2 or the lipid storage droplet AgLSD1 develop normally during early embryogenesis but fail to hatch due to severely impaired metabolism. Embryonic lethality is efficiently recapitulated by exposing adult females to broad-spectrum lipase inhibitors prior to blood feeding, unveiling lipolysis as a potential target for inducing mosquito sterility. Our findings provide mechanistic insights into the importance of maternal lipid mobilization in embryonic health that may inform studies on human reproduction.