A transcriptome analysis of the Aedes aegypti vitellogenic fat body.

Aedes (Stegomyia) aegypti is an important dengue vector in tropical and subtropical zones throughout the world. A transcriptome of Ae. aegypti vitellogenic fat bodies is described here. The fat body is a dynamic tissue that participates in multiple biochemical functions of intermediate metabolism. A total of 589 randomly selected cDNAs were assembled into 262 clusters based on their primary sequence similarities. The putative translated proteins were classified into categories based on their function in accordance with significant similarity using the BlastX at NCBI FTP site and Pfam (Bateman et al. 2000) and SMART (Schultz et al. 2000) databases. The characterization of transcripts expressed in the fat body of Ae. aegypti at 24 hours post blood meal provides a basic tool for understanding the processes occurring in this organ and could identify putative new genes whose promoters can be used to specifically express transgenes in the fat bodies of Ae. aegypti.