The most vulnerable stages of Plasmodium development occur in the lumen of the mosquito midgut, a compartment shared with symbiotic bacteria. Here, we describe a strategy that uses symbiotic bacteria to deliver antimalaria effector molecules to the midgut lumen, thus rendering host mosquitoes refractory to malaria infection. The Escherichia coli hemolysin A secretion system was used to promote ...

Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) is caused by trypanosomes transmitted to humans by the tsetse fly, in which they accomplish their development into their infective metacyclic form. The crucial step in parasite survival occurs when it invades the fly midgut. Insect digestive enzymes and immune defenses may be involved in the modulation of the fly's vector competence, together with bacteria th...

BACKGROUND RNA interference (RNAi) is a powerful method to inhibit gene expression in a sequence specific manner. Recently silencing the target gene through feeding has been successfully carried out in many insect species. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Escherichia coli strain HT115 was genetically engineered to express dsRNA targeting genes that encode ribosomal protein Rpl19, V type ATPase ...

Five hundred and ninety two Siberian sturgeon (A. baerii) fingerlings (average weight, 11.1±0.9 g) were randomly distributed in 16 tanks (150 L) at a density of 35 fish per tank and fed different treatments (Control, degrading bacteria, 2% PHB, degrading bacteria + 2%PHB) for 60 days. At the end of the experiment, the results indicated that the fish fed PHB or bacteria treatments had low midgut...

Some Tetraponera ants (Formicidae, Pseudomyrmecinae) subsist almost entirely on amino acid deficient honeydew secretions of pseudococcids and harbour a dense aggregation of bacterial symbionts in a unique pouch-shaped organ at the junction of the midgut and the intestine. The organ is surrounded by a network of intruding tracheae and Malpighian tubules, suggesting that these bacteria are involv...

Mosquitoes host communities of microbes in their digestive tract that consist primarily of bacteria. We previously reported that several mosquito species, including Aedes aegypti, do not develop beyond the first instar when fed a nutritionally complete diet in the absence of a gut microbiota. In contrast, several species of bacteria, including Escherichia coli, rescue development of axenic larv...

Abstract Microorganisms living in the midgut of Anopheles mosquitoes have been studied to fight vector-borne diseases, such as malaria. Studies on microbiota Neotropical darlingi, most important Brazilian vector for malaria, reported same purpose. Our aims were isolate and identify culturable bacteria from An. darlingi mosquito guts through their feces estimate species richness frequency distri...

Pathogenic spirochetes in the genus Borrelia are transmitted primarily by two families of ticks. The Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi, is transmitted by the slow-feeding ixodid tick Ixodes scapularis, whereas the relapsing fever spirochete, B. hermsii, is transmitted by Ornithodoros hermsi, a fast-feeding argasid tick. Lyme disease spirochetes are generally restricted to the midgut...

The intestinal flagellates of termites produce cellulases that contribute to cellulose digestion of their host termites. However, 75% of all termite species do not harbour the cellulolytic flagellates; the endogenous cellulase secreted from the midgut tissue has been considered a sole source of cellulases in these termites. Using the xylophagous flagellate-free termites Nasutitermes takasagoens...