Semi-artificial mouse skin membrane feeding technique for adult tick, Haemaphysalis longicornis

Particle and Fibre Toxicology

Naotoshi Tsuji²  Kozo Fujisaki¹  Kayoko Yamaji²  Anisuzzaman²  M Abdul Alim²  Md Khyrul Islam²  Makoto Matsubayashi²  Takeharu Miyoshi²  Takeshi Hatta² 

[1] Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases, School of Frontier Veterinary Medicine, Kagoshima University, Korimoto, Kagoshima, 890-0065, Japan;Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, National Institute of Animal Health, National Agricultural and Food Research Organization, 3-1-5 Kannondai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-0856, Japan

关键词: Tick;    Semi-artificial feeding technique;    Mouse skin membrane system;    Haemaphysalis longicornis;   

Others  :  1228838
DOI  :  10.1186/1756-3305-5-263

 received in 2012-06-26, accepted in 2012-10-11,  发布年份 2012

【 摘 要 】

Background

An in vitro artificial feeding technique for hard ticks is quite useful for studying the tick-pathogen interactions. Here, we report a novel semi-artificial feeding technique for the adult parthenogenetic tick, Haemaphysalis longicornis, using mouse skin membrane.

Findings

Skin with attached adult ticks was removed from the mouse body at 4 to 5 days post-infestation for the construction of the feeding system. This system supplied with rabbit blood was kept in >95% relative humidity at 30°C during the feeding, and ticks were fully engorged (artificially engorged, AE) within 12 to 48 h. For comparison, ticks were fed to engorgement solely on rabbit or mouse for 5 days as controls (naturally engorged on rabbit, NEr, or mouse, NEm). Blood digestion-related gene expression in the midgut and reproductive fitness were compared. Body weight, egg mass weight, egg conversion ratio, and hatchability of eggs did not show any significant differences. We analyzed transcription profiles of selected genes assayed by quantitative RT-PCR and revealed similar patterns of expression between NEr and AE but some differences between NEm and AE or NEm and NEr.

Conclusions

Our results demonstrate that this semi-artificial feeding technique mimics natural feeding processes of ticks and can be utilized as a standardized method to inoculate pathogens, especially Babesia protozoa, into H. longicornis and possibly other tick species as well.

【 授权许可】

   
2012 Hatta et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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