Adult female mosquitoes require a blood meal from a vertebrate host to successfully reproduce. During a single blood feeding, a female may ingest more than the equivalent of her own body mass, resulting in an acute stress to osmotic and ionic homeostasis. In response to this stress, the renal (Malpighian) tubules mediate a rapid diuresis that commences as soon as blood is ingested. The diuresis is regulated by neuropeptides (e.g., kinins, calcitonin-like peptide) that act on receptors in the Malpighian tubule epithelium. Interestingly, the expression of these receptors is discontinuous throughout the epithelium, which raises the question as to how Malpighian tubules mount such a rapid and synchronized response to neuropeptide stimulation. Here we propose a hypothesis that gap junctions functionally couple the epithelial cells of Malpighian tubules, resulting in a coordinated physiological response to the binding of neuropeptides. We review recent, relevant literature on the electrophysiology, physiology, and molecular biology of mosquito Malpighian tubules that indicate the presence of gap junctions in the epithelium. We also provide new physiological and immunochemical data that are consistent with the proposed hypothesis.
Keywords: Calcitonin-like peptide; Diuresis; Innexins; Kinin; Malpighian tubules.
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