An international team of researchers reported Thursday that they have sequenced the genome of Aedes aegypti, the mosquito responsible for transmitting yellow and dengue fevers, which are a major burden in Africa and other parts of the developing world. (File Photo)

    WASHINGTON, May 17 (Xinhua) -- An international team of researchers reported Thursday that they have sequenced the genome of Aedes aegypti, the mosquito responsible for transmitting yellow and dengue fevers, which are a major burden in Africa and other parts of the developing world.

    These findings, which will be published in the May 18 issue of journal Science, may provide new leads for controlling the spread of these diseases, and they offer the opportunity to compare this genome with those of Anopheles gambiae, the mosquito that transmits malaria.

    Based on the draft sequence, the researchers reported that the two mosquito genomes have much in common but differ in overall size, the amount of mobile sequences called "transposable elements," and the average lengths of "introns," which are sequences that do not code for protein. Other differences involve gene density and the composition of gene families.

    These insects represent the two major mosquito subfamilies, and the differences between them should reflect inherent biological properties, such as blood feeding preferences, host-seeking behavior and individual abilities to transmit certain pathogens.

    The authors also compared the A. aegypti genome to that of the more distantly related Drosophila melanogaster and identified differences that should help clarify which genes and gene activities are specific to mosquitoes. ¡¡