Fig. 1

loqs2 is a dsRBP paralog of loqs that originated in the ancestor of the Aedes Stegomyia subgenus. A Maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree constructed with the amino acid sequences of the dsRNA-binding proteins (dsRBPs) found in the genomes of Ae. aegypti (Aae), Ae. albopictus (Aal), C. quinquefasciatus (Cq), An. gambiae (Ag), An. coluzzii Mali-NIH (AcM), An. coluzzii Ngousso (AcN), L. longipalpis Jacobina (Ll), S. calcitrans USDA (Sc) and G. fuscipes IAEA (Gf). Branches corresponding to the orthologs of drosha, mle, DIP1, Adar, Dicer-2, Dicer-1, pasha, Son, tRNA-dihydrouridine synthase, Staufen and R2D2 are collapsed to facilitate visualization. Loqs2 and Loqs clades are colored in grey and pink, respectively. Tree is rooted at the midpoint for visualization purposes. Node values correspond to the percentages of 1000 ultra-fast bootstrap iterations. Branch lengths represent substitutions per site. A non-collapsed tree is available in the Additional file 1: Fig. S1A. B Synteny analysis of loqs2 flanking genomic regions among Ae. aegypti, C. quinquefasciatus, An. gambiae and Glossina palpalis. C Schematic cladogram indicating the probable origin of loqs2. The putative appearance of loqs2 was inferred from the identification of sequences aligning to loqs2 coding sequence in high-throughput sequencing data publicly available and are illustrated in the Additional file 1: Fig. S1B. Phylogenetic relationships and molecular clock were extracted from Soghigian et al. [21]