Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, National Institute of Animal Health, National Agricultural and Food Research Organization, 3-1-5 Kannondai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-0856, Japan.
Parasit Vectors. 2012 Nov 15;5:263. doi: 10.1186/1756-3305-5-263.
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.
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.
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.
体外人工饲养硬蜱技术对于研究蜱-病原体相互作用非常有用。在这里，我们报告了一种使用鼠皮膜的半人工饲养技术，用于饲养成年产雌蜱，长角血蜱。
在感染后 4 至 5 天，从鼠体上取下带有附着成年蜱的皮肤，用于构建饲养系统。该系统供应兔血，并在 30°C 下保持>95%的相对湿度，在此期间，蜱完全饱血（人为饱血，AE），12 至 48 小时内完成。为了进行比较，将蜱单独喂饱兔子或老鼠 5 天作为对照（自然在兔子上饱血，NEr，或在老鼠上饱血，NEm）。比较了中肠与生殖适应性相关的基因表达。体重、卵质量、卵转化率和卵孵化率均无显著差异。我们通过定量 RT-PCR 分析了选定基因的转录谱，结果表明，AE 和 NEr 之间的表达模式相似，但 AE 和 NEm 之间或 NEm 和 NEr 之间存在一些差异。
我们的结果表明，这种半人工饲养技术模拟了蜱的自然饲养过程，可以作为一种标准化方法，将巴贝斯原虫等病原体接种到长角血蜱中，也可能接种到其他蜱种中。
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