Anastasia Naumenko

• PhD
• Postdoctoral Research Associate at University of Maryland, College Park

Ecological and genetic studies of malaria mosquitoes of the Black Sea coast have not been recently conducted despite increasing human-caused environmental changes in the area. In this study, we investigated the species composition, geographical distribution, ecological preferences, and chromosomal polymorphism of malaria mosquitoes of the Crimean P...

Mosquitoes transmit a range of pathogens, causing devastating effects on human health. Population genetic control strategies have been developed and successfully used for several mosquito species. The most important step in identifying potential targets for mosquito control is the understanding of gene function. RNA interference (RNAi) is a powerfu...

Background Understanding genome organization and evolution is important for species involved in transmission of human diseases, such as mosquitoes. Anophelinae and Culicinae subfamilies of mosquitoes show striking differences in genome sizes, sex chromosome arrangements, behavior, and ability to transmit pathogens. However, the genomic basis of the...

Background Phylogenetic analyses of closely related species of mosquitoes are important for better understanding the evolution of traits contributing to transmission of vector-borne diseases. Six out of 41 dominant malaria vectors of the genus Anopheles in the world belong to the Maculipennis Group, which is subdivided into two Nearctic subgroups (...

Background Understanding the evolutionary relationships between closely related taxa is important for mosquitoes that transmit human diseases. Six out of 41 dominant malaria vectors in the world belong to the Maculipennis group, which is subdivided into two North American subgroups (Freeborni and Quadrimaculatus), and one Eurasian (Maculipennis) su...

Significance The presence of a dominant male-determining locus (M-locus) in one of a pair of autosomes establishes the male sex in the dengue fever mosquito Aedes aegypti . The Ae. aegypti M-locus contains 30 genes, including Nix , a previously reported male-determining factor. Here we show that the Nix transgene alone was sufficient to convert fem...

Chromosomal inversions are important drivers of genome evolution. The Eurasian malaria vector Anopheles messeae has five polymorphic inversions. A cryptic species, An. daciae, has been discriminated from An. messeae based on five fixed nucleotide substitutions in the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) of ribosomal DNA. However, the inversion poly...

Background A dominant malaria vector, Anopheles messeae, is a highly polymorphic species with wide distribution throughout Eurasia. Five highly polymorphic inversions associated with the geographical distribution of the species have been reported. A sister species, An. daciae, was described and discriminated from An. messeae based on five fixed nuc...

A dominant and hemizygous male-determining locus (M locus) establishes the male sex (M/m) in the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti. Nix is a male-determining factor (M factor) in the M locus and its transient expression in females (m/m) results in partial masculinization. Here, we show that the Nix transgene alone was sufficient to convert femal...

Background: Malaria mosquitoes have had a remarkable stability in the number of chromosomes in their karyotype (2n = 6) during 100 million years of evolution. Moreover, autosomal arms were assumed to maintain their integrity even if their associations with each other changed via whole-arm translocations. Here we use high-coverage comparative physi...

Anopheles atroparvus (Diptera: Culicidae) is one of the main malaria vectors of the Maculipennis group in Europe. Cytogenetic analysis based on salivary gland chromosomes has been used in taxonomic and population genetic studies of mosquitoes from this group. However, a high-resolution cytogenetic map that could be used in physical genome mapping i...

The genome assembly of southern house mosquito Cx. quinquefasciatus is represented by a high number of supercontigs with no order or orientation on the chromosomes. Although cytogenetic maps for the polytene chromosomes of this mosquito have been developed, their utilization for the genome mapping remains difficult because of the low number of high...

Variation in vectorial capacity for human malaria among Anopheles mosquito species is determined by many factors, including behavior, immunity, and life history. To investigate the genomic basis of vectorial capacity and explore new avenues for vector control, we sequenced the genomes of 16 anopheline mosquito species from diverse locations spannin...