Protein expression in female salivary glands of pyrethroid-susceptible and resistant strains of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes

BACKGROUND: A group of insecticides called pyrethroids has been used extensively worldwide and development of pyrethroid resistance within mosquito populations, especially in Aedes aegypti, has rapidly spread through populations. In this study, SDS-PAGE, 2-DE coupled with NanoLC-MS, and bioinformatics were used to analyze the female salivary gland proteins of pyrethroid-susceptible (PMD) and pyrethroid-resistant (PMD-R and UPK-R) strains of Ae. aegypti mosquitoes for the first time. RESULTS: SDS-PAGE analysis revealed that among the three strains at least nine major proteins were detected but one protein band (20 kDa) was found only in the PMD strain. Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis analysis revealed 19 similarly expressed proteins in the salivary glands of the three strains involved in blood-feeding process, stress response, immunogenic response, and metabolic process and five additional major protein spots differentially expressed in the susceptible and resistant strains. Comparative analysis of the expression volume of each protein spot between the PMD and the PMD-R strains showed three downregulated proteins of the PMD-R mosquitoes. For UPK-R strains, six major proteins were downregulated when compared to the PMD strain. Additionally, four downregulated proteins were found in the UPK-R when compared to the PMD-R strain. These results suggest that pyrethroids might induce alteration of salivary gland proteins in resistant mosquitoes. Network analysis by STITCH database 5.0 showed that SRPN23 interacted with sodium and calcium ions, suggesting that SRPN23 might be involved in insecticide resistance. CONCLUSIONS: Information obtained from this study will be useful for further studies on the roles of differentially expressed salivary gland proteins in resistance to insecticides and viral transmission. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13071-019-3374-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.