Determination of seasonal variations of insecticide resistance alleles in anopheles superpictus populations

Mosquitoes are vectors of medically important pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, protozoans and nematodes from a vertebrate host. These pathogens cause diseases such as yellow fever, dengue fever, West Nile virus, encephalitis and malaria. Malaria is transmitted only by Anopheline mosquitoes. Anopheles superpictus species is an important malaria vector in our country. Mosquito control methods are primarily used to protect against mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria. The most widely used method among these methods is the insecticide-based chemical control method. Insecticides can be classified in 4 main groups as organochlorine, organophosphate, carbamate and pyrethroids. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines insecticide resistance as the ability of mosquitoes to survive exposure to a standard dose of an insecticide, as a result of physiological or behavioral adaptation. One of the main mechanisms for resistance development is target site desensitization. In this study, it was aimed to monitor the changes of Ace G119S and Vssc L1014F mutation levels, which cause resistance based on target region desensitization in the Ace gene product, which is responsible for organophosphate resistance, and Vssc gene product, which is responsible for pyrethroid resistance, in An. superpictus populations in the Aegean region for three different seasonal periods. As a result of the studies, the mutation that caused resistance in the Ace gene for three periods could not be detected as homozygous. The mutation frequency was determined as 0.002 in the first period, 0.002 in the second, and 0.00 in the third period. Low rates of mutations were detected in the Vssc gene. The mutation frequency was determined as 0.025 in the first period, 0.013 in the second period, and 0.024 in the third period.