Sample collection

Ae. aegypti specimens belonging to the New Orleans strain were bred at the insectarium of the Medical Entomology Laboratory of the Facultad de Ciencias Biologicas in the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon. Breeding of the mosquitoes was performed under laboratory conditions with a temperature of 28 ± 2 °C, a light/dark photoperiod of 12/12 h and relative humidity of 70 ± 2%. A total of 3000 eggs, 100 males and 100 females were separated, and miRNA extraction from the specimens was carried out with the commercial kit miRNeasy Mini, following the provider instructions (Qiagen, Germantown, MD, USA). RNA extracted was treated with RQ1 RNase-Free Dnase (Promega, San Luis Obispo, CA, USA) to remove genomic DNA traces. Standard spectrophotometry (Thermo Fisher, Waltham, MA, USA) and agarose gel electrophoresis were used to evaluate RNA purity and integrity, respectively.