Discussion

Malaria is the world's more serious vector-borne disease with a tremendous loss of life and socioeconomic impact. A major problem in malaria control efforts is the parasite's resistance to drugs, thereby rendering the development of new therapeutic and transmission-blocking agents an urgent need. We have identified a Chromobacterium sp (Csp_P) from field-derived mosquito midgut microbiota that exerts broad spectrum anti-pathogen and entomopathogenic activity. Csp_P is capable of rapidly colonizing/infecting the mosquito midgut, leading to a drastically shortened mosquito lifespan, and it renders Anopheles resistant to infection with the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum by interfering with infection of the midgut epithelium. A Csp_P - produced metabolite also inhibit sexual and asexual stages of Plasmodium in vitro, thereby rendering it interesting as a possible lead compound for transmission blocking and therapeutic agent/drug development.