Soto Alina, Devlies Ann-Sophie, Wauters Lotte, Ferreira Pinto Ana Paula, Delang Leen
Virus-Host Interactions & Therapeutic Approaches (VITA) Research Group, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute for Medical Research, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
J Insect Sci. 2025 Mar 14;25(2). doi: 10.1093/jisesa/ieaf022.
Mosquitoes are hematophagous insects. Obtaining fresh animal blood to maintain laboratory colonies, rear high numbers of mosquitoes, or blood-feed mosquitoes for experimental purposes, can be costly and imposes ethical concerns. Recently, the artificial meal SkitoSnack was developed to rear Aedes aegypti L. mosquitoes. This artificial diet is low-cost, can be easily prepared in the laboratory, and results in comparable life history traits to Ae. aegypti raised with animal blood. Here, we investigated if the SkitoSnack can be used to produce the next generation of Culex pipiens L. as a substitute for animal blood and assessed the effects on mosquito fitness. Female Cx. pipiens fed with SkitoSnack demonstrated high post-feeding mortality and lower fecundity, fertility, egg-laying rates, egg-hatching rates, and offspring emergence rates compared to those fed with vertebrate animal blood. In contrast, the longevity and body sizes of the offspring were not significantly different between the 2 feeding groups, suggesting that the first generation of SkitoSnack-reared mosquitoes had similar fitness to those raised from animal blood. Feeding a different generation of Cx. pipiens resulted in a similar loss of fitness in the SkitoSnack-fed females; however, these females were unable to produce viable offspring. In addition, we fed the SkitoSnack to Ae. aegypti, which also resulted in a significant reduction in fecundity and fertility. A significant loss of life and reproductive capacity was observed in SkitoSnack-fed Cx. pipiens, but more research is required to determine whether optimizing the current SkitoSnack formula can improve the fitness outcomes of fed females.
蚊子是吸血昆虫。获取新鲜动物血液以维持实验室种群、大量饲养蚊子或为实验目的让蚊子吸食血液，成本可能很高，且存在伦理问题。最近，开发了人工饲料SkitoSnack来饲养埃及伊蚊。这种人工饲料成本低，可在实验室轻松制备，并且能产生与用动物血液饲养的埃及伊蚊相当的生活史特征。在此，我们研究了SkitoSnack是否可用于培育下一代尖音库蚊以替代动物血液，并评估其对蚊子适合度的影响。与喂食脊椎动物血液的雌性尖音库蚊相比，喂食SkitoSnack的雌性尖音库蚊显示出较高的喂食后死亡率以及较低的繁殖力、生育力、产卵率、卵孵化率和后代羽化率。相比之下，两个喂食组后代的寿命和体型没有显著差异，这表明第一代用SkitoSnack饲养的蚊子与用动物血液饲养的蚊子具有相似的适合度。喂食不同代的尖音库蚊会导致喂食SkitoSnack的雌性蚊子出现类似的适合度损失；然而，这些雌性无法产生有活力的后代。此外，我们给埃及伊蚊喂食SkitoSnack，这也导致其繁殖力和生育力显著降低。在喂食SkitoSnack的尖音库蚊中观察到了显著的生命和生殖能力损失，但需要更多研究来确定优化当前的SkitoSnack配方是否能改善喂食雌性的适合度结果。
