{"doi":"10.1101/2020.05.13.094995","title":"Gene Editing Reveals Obligate and Modulatory Components of the CO <sub>2</sub> Receptor Complex in the Malaria Vector Mosquito, <i>Anopheles coluzzii</i>","abstract":"Abstract The sensitivity to volatile carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) produced by humans and other animals is a critical component in the host preference behaviors of the malaria vector mosquito Anopheles coluzzii . The molecular receptors responsible for the ability to sense CO 2 are encoded by three putative gustatory receptor ( Gr ) genes ( Gr22,23,24 ) which are expressed in a distinctive array of sensory neurons housed in maxillary palp capitate peg sensilla of An. coluzzii . Despite the identification of these components and subsequent studies, there is a paucity of understanding regarding the respective roles of these three GRs in the mosquito’s CO 2 transduction process. To address this, we have used CRISPR/Cas9-based gene editing techniques combined with in vivo electrophysiological recordings to directly examine the role of Gr22,23,24 in detecting CO 2 in An. coluzzii . These studies reveal that both Gr23 and Gr24 are absolutely required to maintain in vivo CO 2 sensitivity while, in contrast, Gr22 knock out mutants are still able to respond to CO 2 stimuli albeit with significantly weaker sensitivity. Our data supports a model in which Gr22 plays a modulatory role to enhance the functionality of Gr23/24 complexes that are responsible for CO 2 sensitivity of mosquitoes.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2020,"id":124899,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9623,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":304878,"name":"Zi Ye","orcid":"0000-0002-4980-358X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":304879,"name":"Adam Baker","orcid":"0000-0003-0791-7324","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":304877,"name":"Huahua Sun","orcid":"0000-0002-2596-9374","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":304880,"name":"Laurence J. Zwiebel","orcid":"0000-0001-6686-7289","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":497271,"name":"Feng Liu","orcid":"0000-0001-9560-8518","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":43,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:15:11.632153Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}