Fig. 1

ModSP responses to fungal infection in Aedes aegypti. A Hierarchical clustering analysis of different expressive genes of serine proteases in mosquitoes infected with Beauveria bassiana for 48 h. PBS, mosquitoes treated with PBS; Bb, mosquitoes infected with B. bassiana. B qRT-PCR examination of transcript levels of ModSP after B. bassiana treatment. The qRT-PCR results were normalized to the internal control rps7. The results were given in triplicate and presented as mean ± SEM. The Student’s t-test was used to determine the statistical significance of treatment means (GraphPad Prism 6). **P < 0.01. PBS, mosquitoes treated with PBS; Bb, mosquitoes infected with B. bassiana. C Expression levels of ModSP protein were evaluated by immunoblotting of Ae. aegypti hemolymph using the ModSP polyclonal antibody. Lipophorin II (LPII) was used as the loading control. H, hemolymph of mosquitoes treated with PBS for 48 h; H + Bb, hemolymph of mosquitoes infected with B. bassiana for 48 h. D The survival status of mosquitoes infected with B. bassiana was additionally aggravated by ModSP RNAi treatment (dsModSP + Bb). Three repetitions of each experiment were carried out. The Kaplan-Meier approach was used to draw the survival curves, and the P-value was defined by the log-rank (Mantel-Cox) test. **P < 0.01. dsEGFP + PBS, dsEGFP + Bb, dsEGFP-injected mosquitoes treated with PBS or B. bassiana conidia; dsModSP + PBS, dsModSP + Bb, dsModSP-injected mosquitoes treated with PBS or B. bassiana conidia. E Expression levels of AMPs in mosquitoes treated with PBS or B. bassiana conidia for 48 h. The qRT-PCR results were normalized to the internal control rps7. The results were fulfilled in triplicate and are presented as mean ± SEM. The Student’s t-test was used to compare the statistical significance of treatment means (GraphPad Prism 6). **P < 0.01