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Have they ever checked where else as in what species does similar gene expression happen. Sounds crazy. This is a very interesting find with disturbing applications. While all pesticides are bio weapons this seems particularly badly targeted

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This is a dandy idea about bee-parasites because different species probably don't share signaling pathways.~

2005: [TOR] Target of Rapamycin-dependent Activation of S6 Kinase Is a Central Step in the Transduction of Nutritional Signals during Egg Development in a Mosquito (UC Riverside, Hansen I et al. doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M500712200)

"Amino acid signaling via the target of rapamycin (TOR) pathway has been identified as a key requirement for the activation of egg development after a blood meal. We report the characterization of the TOR kinase and one of its major downstream targets, S6 kinase, of the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti during egg development in adult females. Both TOR and S6K mRNA are expressed at high levels in the ovaries and in lower levels in fat body and other tissues.... RNA interference-mediated reduction of S6 kinase strongly inhibits the amino acid-induced up-regulation of the major yolk protein vitellogenin in vitro and effectively disrupts egg development after a blood meal in vivo. Our data show that TOR-dependent activation of S6 kinase is a central step in the transduction of nutritional information during egg development in mosquitoes."

2016: "Proteins Deregulate Akt-mTOR Signaling in Human Fetal Neural Stem Cells to Inhibit Neurogenesis and Induce Autophagy." "The current widespread outbreak of Zika virus (ZIKV) infection has been linked to severe clinical birth defects, particularly microcephaly, warranting urgent study of the molecular mechanisms underlying ZIKV pathogenesis. Akt-mTOR signaling is one of the key cellular pathways essential for brain development and autophagy regulation. Here, we show that ZIKV infection of human fetal neural stem cells (fNSCs) causes inhibition of the Akt-mTOR pathway, leading to defective neurogenesis and aberrant activation of autophagy. By screening the three structural proteins and seven nonstructural proteins present in ZIKV, we found that two, NS4A and NS4B, cooperatively suppress the Akt-mTOR pathway and lead to cellular dysregulation." (Liang Q et al. doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2016.07.019.)

2021: "Zika Virus Congenital Syndrome and MTOR gene variants: insights from a family of dizygotic twins.": "We performed a complete exome sequencing in a set of dizygotic individuals and their parents. After that, we selected discordant variants on the MTOR gene between the affected and unaffected twin and we observed a mutation (rs2295079), placed in a region restricted to proximal 5'-UTR, as a strong possible causal variant. In addition, in most brain tissues (including fetal brain) evaluated for expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL), this locus is strongly correlated with post-translational modifications of histones (promoter and enhancer marks) and hypersensitivity to DNAse I (open chromatin mark). Taken together, our data suggest that changes in the MTOR gene may be related to CZS. Additional functional studies should be carried out to prove how and why a MTOR mutation can predispose the fetus to the syndrome."

How and why:

TOR is an evolutionarily conserved regulator of cell growth (Kunz J et al. 1993, Brown EJ et al. 1994, Chiu MI et al. 1994, Sabitini DM et al. 1994, Sabers CJ et al. 1995, Oldham S et al. 2000, Zhang H et al. 2000)

2015: "Roles of mTOR Signaling in Brain Development" (Lee DY, doi: 10.5607/en.2015.24.3.177).

2019: "Novel roles of mechanistic target of rapamycin signaling in regulating fetal growth" (Gupta and Jansson doi.org/10.1093/biolre/ioy249).

2019: German DW news: "Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil: After a field experiment between 2013 and 2015, genetically modified mosquitoes are breeding in Brazil. According to the researchers' original plan, all released mosquitoes and their offspring should have died."

https://www.dw.com/en/genetically-modified-mosquitoes-breed-in-brazil/a-50414340

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