Portal:Biological warfare/Selected biological agent/23
The yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti (=Stegomyia aegypti, =Aedes (Stegomyia) aegypti), is a mosquito that can spread the dengue fever, Chikungunya and yellow fever viruses, and other diseases. The mosquito can be recognized by white markings on legs and a marking of the form of a lyre on the thorax. The mosquito originated from Africa but is now found in the tropics worldwide. The genome of this species of mosquito was sequenced by a consortium including scientists at the J Craig Venter Institute and the University of Notre Dame, and published in 2007. The effort in sequencing its DNA was intended to provide new avenues for research into insecticides and possible genetic modification to prevent the spread of virus. This was the second mosquito species to have its genome sequenced in full (the first was Anopheles gambiae). The published data included the 1.38 billion base pairs containing the insect's estimated 15,419 protein encoding genes. The sequence indicates that the species diverged from Drosophila melanogaster (the common fruit fly) about 250 million years ago, and that Anopheles gambiae and this species diverged about 150 million years ago.
