A massive expansion of molecular biology methods following in the last 20 years, aided by the advent of efficient genome sequencing technologies, has led to growth in major areas of mosquito research such as Ecology, Immunology, and Vector Biology. Mosquito research focused on molecular biology itself, outside of these contexts, has been less of a focus. This Methods Collection serves to renew that interest, highlighting basic sciences and molecular biology research in mosquitoes. Growth in mosquito molecular biology research should better inform more complicated undertakings, such as genome plasticity evaluation, gene drive applications, multi-omics analysis, and genome-wide investigation of gene function within an in vivo, tissue-specific context. As molecular biology efforts in mosquitoes expand, medically relevant disciplines of mosquito research will benefit from additional, context-specific information.

This Methods Collection focuses on mosquito-optimized molecular biology methods. Topics include analysis of all facets of Molecular Biology: nucleic acids, proteins, their interactions, gene function, genomics, genetics, multi-omics, visualization, tissue fixation, identification of components of complex solutions, signaling pathways, structure-function relationships, molecular conservation, gene expression, and others. The developmental and physiological context for this collection is mosquito midguts and salivary glands from embryonic, larval, pupal, and adult mosquitoes of all genera and species, but broadly-relevant molecular methods applied in other tissues will be sought out for inclusion.