Identification of electrophoretically separated proteases from midgut and hemolymph of adult Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes.

Digestion of blood within the mosquito midgut is mediated primarily by a series of proteases, and several previous studies have described protease activity within homogenates of the midgut of the malaria vector Anopheles stephensi. We have expanded on these previous data by resolving protease isoforms from the midgut as well as the hemolymph of adult An. stephensi mosquitoes via gel electrophoresis and zymography. Using this procedure, we have been able to identify multiple isozymes of trypsin, chymotrypsin, and aminopeptidase. We were able to detect an increase in the intensity of some of these protease bands plus the appearance of new bands 24 hr after mosquitoes had taken a blood meal. Furthermore, we detected 2 endogenous trypsin isozymes within the hemolymph. There was no upregulation of these hemolymph isozymes after a blood meal, thus suggesting that they may not be involved in digestion of the blood meal by the mosquito.