February 2005
Insect research combats disease in humans, crop plants and forests
By: William G. Gilroy
Most of us would shy away from looking too closely at lice, ticks and beetles, but we should be grateful that researchers at a University of Notre Dame center are taking an intense look at the insects.
The Indiana Center for Insect Genomics, a center that partners Notre Dame researchers with those from Purdue and Indiana Universities, has received a $2 million grant from the Indiana 21st Century Fund to develop genomic tools that will facilitate the study of a wide range of insects.
“The center integrates research from three universities with different missions: Notre Dame, a private institution; Purdue, a land-grant institution; and Indiana, a public institution,” said Jeanne Romero-Severson, a Notre Dame associate professor of biological sciences who serves as director of the center. “It features three key traditions of excellence: Notre Dame in vector genomics, Purdue in agricultural genomics and Indiana in the bioinformatics of insect physiology.”
The mission of the center is to create the capacity to rapidly respond to diseases of people, animals and crops.
“We need to be able to understand the genetic makeup of whatever insect is carrying the disease so we can change that insect population instead of simply trying to kill it,” Romero-Severson said. “Insect resistance is a fact of nature. Mosquitoes and flies have become resistant to DDT. Even the malarial parasite has become resistant to widely used antimalarial drugs.”
The smarter way to approach insect-borne problems, she feels, is through rational drug design.
“The approach should be very targeted, so we can alter particular species without killing other, beneficial insects,” Romero-Severson said.
Some of the center’s objects of study may seem unpleasant, but they are an important source of genetic information about diseases. Lice, for example, carry plague and other serious diseases. Understanding the basic genetics of how they transmit these diseases to people could prove an important tool in combating deliberate introductions of disease-infected lice. Ticks also carry a variety of diseases, including Lyme disease.
Romero-Severson is studying sudden oak death, a disease that is devastating red oaks in the west and threatens northern red oak, the dominant tree species in the Eastern Deciduous Forest. The disease is having a major impact on the oak woodlands in California because acorns are a major source of food for wild life and insects.
The impact in eastern forests will be even greater because red oaks are not only a major food source for animals but also provide fine hardwood for floors, furniture and veneer. In many areas in the central hardwoods region, including southern Indiana, the manufacture of fine furniture is the primary motivation for sustainable forestry on lands.
“Red oaks are native only to the Americas,” Romero-Severson said. “We’re bringing the same resources we used to study malaria to find answers about this disease. Disease ecology bridges vector, plant and insect genetics.”
John G. Duman, Notre Dame’s Gillen Professor of Biological Sciences, is researching an antifreeze protein from Alaskan beetles under the center’s auspices.
A persistent problem regarding organ transplants is that organs do not keep for a long period of time. Freezing living tissues produces ice crystals in cells, which act like tiny needles, rupturing membranes. Thus, the time element is crucial and organs must be harvested and transplanted in a matter of hours.
Duman is studying an antifreeze protein that enables beetles to live under the Alaskan ice and remain cool without ice crystallization. The proteins work at the molecular level, coating emerging ice crystals and blocking their growth.
Putting the antifreeze proteins in bacteria and extracting them into a solution may provide a means of preserving organs in the solution for days or even months.
Romero-Severson views the Center for Disease Genomics as being highly compatible with Notre Dame’s mission.
“Disease will always be with us, but we need to manage it in an environmental and ecologically responsible manner,” she said. “As for our biomedical applications, an anti-freeze protein can help us develop a more equitable system for organ transplantation, as opposed to the hit and miss manner we now use.”
Contact
Jeanne Romero-Severson at
Jeanne.Romero-Severson.1@nd.edu and John Duman at John.G.Duman.1@nd.edu