Insects have evolved creative and unique abilities to detect, acquire, metabolize, store, and excrete the essential nutrient nitrogen. Across the entire life cycle of the mosquito, the relevance of ammonia (NH₃/NH₄⁺) nitrogen at the different stages and between sexes is remarkable. In fact, adaptations to high external ammonia appear to be a primary physiological hurdle for mosquito inhabitation of urban and peri-urban habitats. Despite the internal and external demands for ammonia transport and regulation across the Aedes aegypti mosquito life cycle being increasingly well documented, the molecular machinery that makes these feats possible is far from established in mosquitoes. Using a variety of approaches, we characterize the specialized ammonium transporter proteins that shuttle NH₃/NH₄⁺ across cell membranes, like an Rh protein in the larval hindgut shown in the image to the left. Our current research is primarily focused on adult mosquitoes.

Tori, PhD student in the lab, has been hard at work generating mutant mosquito lines that lack functional ammonium transporter (Amt) proteins. We will use these lines to study the roles of Amts across the mosquito life cycle. Thank you to the Laursen Lab @ UW for wisdom and guidance. Stay tuned for exciting updates on this work!