Tracking zoonotic pathogens using blood-sucking flies as 'flying syringes'
- Biogéosciences Unit, UMR 6282 CNRS-uB-EPHE-AgroSup, Équipe Écologie-Évolutive, France
- Centre International de Recherches Médicales de Franceville, Gabon
- UMR 224-5290 IRD-CNRS-UM, Centre IRD de Montpellier, France
- Université de Yaoundé 1, Cameroon
Abstract
About 60% of emerging infectious diseases in humans are of zoonotic origin. Their increasing number requires the development of new methods for early detection and monitoring of infectious agents in wildlife. Here, we investigated whether blood meals from hematophagous flies could be used to identify the infectious agents circulating in wild vertebrates. To this aim, 1230 blood-engorged flies were caught in the forests of Gabon. Identified blood meals (30%) were from 20 vertebrate species including mammals, birds and reptiles. Among them, 9% were infected by different extant malaria parasites among which some belonged to known parasite species, others to new parasite species or to parasite lineages for which only the vector was known. This study demonstrates that using hematophagous flies as 'flying syringes' constitutes an interesting approach to investigate blood-borne pathogen diversity in wild vertebrates and could be used as an early detection tool of zoonotic pathogens.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie
- Paul-Yannick Bitome-Essono
- Flobert Njiokou
- François Bretagnolle
- Franck Prugnolle
- Christophe Paupy
Service de Coopération et d'Action Culturelle de l'ambassade de France au Gabon
- Paul-Yannick Bitome-Essono
- François Bretagnolle
LMI ZOFAC IRD
- Benjamin Ollomo
- Franck Prugnolle
- Christophe Paupy
CIRMF
- Paul-Yannick Bitome-Essono
- Benjamin Ollomo
- Diego Ayala
- Virginie Rougeron
- Franck Prugnolle
- Christophe Paupy
ANR JCJC 07-2012-ORIGIN
- Virginie Rougeron
- Franck Prugnolle
- Christophe Paupy
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2017, Bitome-Essono et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 5,687
- views
-
- 716
- downloads
-
- 34
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Tracking zoonotic pathogens using blood-sucking flies as 'flying syringes'
eLife 6:e22069.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.22069
Further reading
-
- Developmental Biology
- Ecology
Organisms require dietary macronutrients in specific ratios to maximize performance, and variation in macronutrient requirements plays a central role in niche determination. Although it is well recognized that development and body size can have strong and predictable effects on many aspects of organismal function, we lack a predictive understanding of ontogenetic or scaling effects on macronutrient intake. We determined protein and carbohydrate intake throughout development on lab populations of locusts and compared to late instars of field populations. Self-selected protein:carbohydrate targets declined dramatically through ontogeny, due primarily to declines in mass-specific protein consumption rates which were highly correlated with declines in specific growth rates. Lab results for protein consumption rates partly matched results from field-collected locusts. However, field locusts consumed nearly double the carbohydrate, likely due to higher activity and metabolic rates. Combining our results with the available data for animals, both across species and during ontogeny, protein consumption scaled predictably and hypometrically, demonstrating a new scaling rule key for understanding nutritional ecology.
-
- Ecology
- Evolutionary Biology
Seasonal polyphenism enables organisms to adapt to environmental challenges by increasing phenotypic diversity. Cacopsylla chinensis exhibits remarkable seasonal polyphenism, specifically in the form of summer-form and winter-form, which have distinct morphological phenotypes. Previous research has shown that low temperature and the temperature receptor CcTRPM regulate the transition from summer-form to winter-form in C. chinensis by impacting cuticle content and thickness. However, the underling neuroendocrine regulatory mechanism remains largely unknown. Bursicon, also known as the tanning hormone, is responsible for the hardening and darkening of the insect cuticle. In this study, we report for the first time on the novel function of Bursicon and its receptor in the transition from summer-form to winter-form in C. chinensis. Firstly, we identified CcBurs-α and CcBurs-β as two typical subunits of Bursicon in C. chinensis, which were regulated by low temperature (10 °C) and CcTRPM. Subsequently, CcBurs-α and CcBurs-β formed a heterodimer that mediated the transition from summer-form to winter-form by influencing the cuticle chitin contents and cuticle thickness. Furthermore, we demonstrated that CcBurs-R acts as the Bursicon receptor and plays a critical role in the up-stream signaling of the chitin biosynthesis pathway, regulating the transition from summer-form to winter-form. Finally, we discovered that miR-6012 directly targets CcBurs-R, contributing to the regulation of Bursicon signaling in the seasonal polyphenism of C. chinensis. In summary, these findings reveal the novel function of the neuroendocrine regulatory mechanism underlying seasonal polyphenism and provide critical insights into the insect Bursicon and its receptor.
