A Wolbachia Symbiont in Aedes aegypti Disrupts Mosquito Egg Development to a Greater Extent When Mosquitoes Feed on Nonhuman Versus Human Blood

2011 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Conor J. McMeniman ◽  
Grant L. Hughes ◽  
Scott L. O'Neill
Insects ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Véronique Paris ◽  
Ellen Cottingham ◽  
Perran Ross ◽  
Jason Axford ◽  
Ary Hoffmann

Wolbachia bacteria have been identified as a tool for reducing the transmission of arboviruses transmitted by Aedes aegypti. Research groups around the world are now mass rearing Wolbachia-infected Ae. aegypti for deliberate release. We investigated the fitness impact of a crucial element of mass rearing: the blood meal required by female Ae. aegypti to lay eggs. Although Ae. aegypti almost exclusively feed on human blood, it is often difficult to use human blood in disease-endemic settings. When females were fed on sheep or pig blood rather than human blood, egg hatch rates decreased in all three lines tested (uninfected, or infected by wMel, or wAlbB Wolbachia). This finding was particularly pronounced when fed on sheep blood, although fecundity was not affected. Some of these effects persisted after an additional generation on human blood. Attempts to keep populations on sheep and pig blood sources only partly succeeded, suggesting that strong adaptation is required to develop a stably infected line on an alternative blood source. There was a decrease in Wolbachia density when Ae. aegypti were fed on non-human blood sources. Density increased in lines kept for multiple generations on the alternate sources but was still reduced relative to lines kept on human blood. These findings suggest that sheep and pig blood will entail a cost when used for maintaining Wolbachia-infected Ae. aegypti. These costs should be taken into account when planning mass release programs.


1956 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 125 ◽  
Author(s):  
AK O’gower

The rate of ciigesl;iol1 of human blood was invcsLigated at 4-hourly intorval" by tho I'reeipitin and benzidine tests for tho mosquito species .Aedes aegypti, A. concolor, A. noto8oriptu8, A. soutellaris, and Culea., fllliymis. In an enviroWllent ill which temperature and humidity w('["o oonstant and in whioh thoro were equal periods of light and darkness, the mie of digestion ranged from :11 hI' for 8CUtellm'is to ·Hl hI' for A. COil color.


1985 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 323-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.T. Greenplate ◽  
R.L. Glaser ◽  
H.H. Hagedorn

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (5) ◽  
pp. 1640-1647
Author(s):  
Catherine A Pruszynski ◽  
Tanise Stenn ◽  
Carolina Acevedo ◽  
Andrea L Leal ◽  
Nathan D Burkett-Cadena

Abstract Aedes aegypti L. is considered to have a proclivity for feeding on human blood even when other hosts are available. However, few studies have demonstrated host use by this mosquito in the continental United States, where local transmission of dengue, Zika, and chikungunya viruses has been recently documented. This study investigated the bloodmeal sources of female Ae. aegypti in the subtropical city of Key West and the surrounding county in Florida with the goal of identifying preferred hosts. Blood-engorged Ae. aegypti mosquitoes were collected from BG Sentinel traps used as part of a routine surveillance program in the Florida Keys (Monroe County, Florida). Bloodmeal samples were analyzed using PCR assays, sequencing, and comparison with reference sequences in GenBank. Aedes aegypti females from Key West fed predominantly on humans (79.6%) and did not differ statistically from females collected from the rest of the Florida Keys (69.5%). Culex quinquefasciatus Say (Diptera: Culicidae), considered a host generalist, was collected and analyzed from the same sites for comparative purposes. Females of Cx. quinquefasciatus fed predominantly (70.7%) on birds and nonhuman mammals in the Florida Keys, corroborating the validity of molecular assay breadth and demonstrating that given the same group of available hosts Ae. aegypti selects humans. Our results indicated that Ae. aegypti has a high rate of human-biting in a subtropical area within the United States, supporting its role in recent local transmission of dengue and other viruses.


1988 ◽  
Vol 66 (5) ◽  
pp. 877-884 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Lucarotti ◽  
Marina B. Klein

Coelomomyces stegomyiae (Chytridiomycetes, Blastocladiales) infection in adult female Aedes aegypti (Diptera, Culicidae) is located primarily in the ovaries. Fungal hyphae do not penetrate the germaria or follicles but instead lie between the tunica propria and epithelial sheath within each ovariole and between the epithelial sheath and the peritoneal sheath of the ovary. Aedes aegypti is an anautogenous mosquito requiring a blood meal for egg development; similarly, fungal hyphae in infected ovaries will not differentiate to form resting sporangia until after the mosquito has taken a blood meal. The fungus restricts receptor-mediated endocytosis of vitellogenin by the plasma membrane of the oocyte so that few, if any, vitellin yolk granules form. Thick-walled resting sporangia have formed 72 h after the blood meal has been taken and these will be oviposited by the females in place of the aborted eggs.


1979 ◽  
Vol 205 (1160) ◽  
pp. 411-421 ◽  

Most female mosquitoes require a blood-meal in order to produce mature oöcytes. An egg development neurosecretory hormone (EDNH), which is produced in the medial neurosecretory cells (m. n. c.) of the brain and stored in the corpus cardiacum, is released into the haemolymph following the ingestion of blood and is essential for the promotion of ovarian development to maturity. It has been shown that a factor from the m. n. c., presumably EDNH, is necessary if the blood-meal is to be retained in the mid-gut until the oöcytes approach maturity. The present paper shows that retention is not a direct result of the action of EDNH, but is dependent on the ovaries and may well involve ecdysone. Removal of the ovaries before a blood-meal leads to early haem-defaecation, but delay can be restored by injection of ecdysterone. Sub-threshold feeders and mosquitoes decapitated immediately after the intake of blood, each of which would be expected to eliminate the blood-meal early, also show a delay in the onset of haem-defaecation when injected with ecdysterone. Further, both in ovariectomized insects and sub-threshold feeders the time of onset of haem-defaecation is associated with the dose of ecdysterone given.


2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda M. Styer ◽  
Sharon L. Minnick ◽  
Anna K. Sun ◽  
Thomas W. Scott
Keyword(s):  

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. e0251100
Author(s):  
Agata Kaczmarek ◽  
Anna Katarzyna Wrońska ◽  
Mieczysława Irena Boguś ◽  
Michalina Kazek ◽  
Aleksandra Gliniewicz ◽  
...  

Aedes aegypti, the primary vector of various arthropod-borne viral (arboviral) diseases such as dengue and Zika, is a popular laboratory model in vector biology. However, its maintenance in laboratory conditions is difficult, mostly because the females require blood meals to complete oogenesis, which is often provided as sheep blood. The outermost layer of the mosquito cuticle is consists of lipids which protects against numerous entomopathogens, prevents desiccation and plays an essential role in signalling processes. The aim of this work was to determine how the replacement of human blood with sheep blood affects the cuticular and internal FFA profiles of mosquitoes reared in laboratory culture. The individual FFAs present in cuticular and internal extracts from mosquito were identified and quantified by GC–MS method. The normality of their distribution was checked using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and the Student’s t-test was used to compare them. GC-MS analysis revealed similar numbers of internal and cuticular FFAs in the female mosquitoes fed sheep blood by membrane (MFSB) and naturally fed human blood (NFHB), however MFSB group demonstrated 3.1 times greater FFA concentrations in the cuticular fraction and 1.4 times the internal fraction than the NFHB group. In the MFSB group, FFA concentration was 1.6 times higher in the cuticular than the internal fraction, while for NFHB, FFA concentration was 1.3 times lower in the cuticular than the internal fraction. The concentration of C18:3 acid was 223 times higher in the internal fraction than the cuticle in the MHSB group but was absent in the NFHB group. MFSB mosquito demonstrate different FFA profiles to wild mosquitoes, which might influence their fertility and the results of vital processes studied under laboratory conditions. The membrane method of feeding mosquitoes is popular, but our research indicates significant differences in the FFA profiles of MFSB and NFHB. Such changes in FFA profile might influence female fertility, as well as other vital processes studied in laboratory conditions, such as the response to pesticides. Our work indicates that sheep blood has potential shortcomings as a substitute feed for human blood, as its use in laboratory studies may yield different results to those demonstrated by free-living mosquitoes.


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