Aksoy S
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Section of Vector Biology, Yale University School of Medicine, 60 College St., 606 LEPH, New Haven, CT 06510, USA.
Parasitol Today. 2000 Mar;16(3):114-8. doi: 10.1016/s0169-4758(99)01606-3.
Arthropods are involved in the transmission of parasitic and viral agents that cause devastating diseases in animals and plants. Effective control strategies for many of these diseases still rely on the elimination or reduction of vector insect populations. In addition to these pathogenic organisms, arthropods are rich in microbes that are symbiotic in their associations and are often necessary for the fecundity and viability of their hosts. Because the viability of the host often depends on these obligate symbionts, and because these organisms often live in close proximity to disease-causing pathogens, they have been of interest to applied biologists as a potential means to genetically manipulate populations of pest species. As knowledge on these symbiotic associations accumulates from distantly related insect taxa, conserved mechanisms for their transmission and evolutionary histories are beginning to emerge. Here, Serap Aksoy summarizes current knowledge on the functional and evolutionary biology of the multiple symbionts harbored in the medically and agriculturally important insect group, tsetse, and their potential role in the control of trypanosomiasis.
节肢动物参与传播在动植物中引发毁灭性疾病的寄生虫和病毒病原体。许多此类疾病的有效控制策略仍依赖于消灭或减少媒介昆虫种群。除了这些致病生物外，节肢动物富含共生微生物，这些微生物通常对其宿主的繁殖力和生存能力至关重要。由于宿主的生存能力往往依赖于这些专性共生体，且这些生物常常与致病病原体密切共存，它们作为一种潜在手段，可用于对害虫种群进行基因操控，因而受到应用生物学家的关注。随着关于这些共生关系的知识从亲缘关系较远的昆虫类群中不断积累，其传播的保守机制和进化历史开始显现。在此，塞拉普·阿克索伊总结了关于医学和农业上重要的昆虫群体——采采蝇所携带的多种共生体的功能和进化生物学的现有知识，以及它们在控制锥虫病方面的潜在作用。
