Effects of radiation on blood‐feeding activity of
            <i>Aedes aegypti</i>
            (Diptera: Culicidae)

Cunningham, Courtney A.; Aldridge, Robert L.; Kline, Jedidiah; Bibbs, Christopher S.; Linthicum, Kenneth J.; Xue, Rui‐De

doi:10.1111/jvec.12382

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…We found that radiation doses of ≥50 Gy significantly reduced the portion of females engaging in blood feeding over multiple blood‐feeding bouts (Fig. 6; effect of dose: χ 2 = 270.8, P < 0.001; effect of bout: χ 2 = 27.9, P < 0.001; effect of dose × bout: χ 2 = 56.0, P < 0.05), which is consistent with our previous study 26,46 . Overall, our results combined with results from other studies showing that irradiation at doses sufficiently high to induce male sterility also decrease female feeding propensity, suggest that the biting risk posed by accidental release of a small number of females from sex‐sorting errors in SIT programs is low.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 91%

Developing the radiation‐based sterile insect technique (SIT) for controlling Aedes aegypti: identification of a sterilizing dose

Chen

Aldridge

Gibson

et al. 2022

Pest Management Science

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Background: The sterile insect technique (SIT) is emerging as a tool to supplement traditional pesticide-based control of Aedes aegypti, a prominent mosquito vector of microbes that has increased the global burden of human morbidity and mortality over the past 50 years. SIT relies on rearing, sterilizing and releasing large numbers of male mosquitoes that will mate with fertile wild females, thus reducing production of offspring from the target population. In this study, we investigated the effects of ionizing radiation (gamma) on male and female survival, longevity, mating behavior, and sterility of Ae. aegypti in a dose-response design. This work is a first step towards developing an operational SIT field suppression program against Ae. aegypti in St

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 91%

Developing the radiation‐based sterile insect technique (SIT) for controlling Aedes aegypti: identification of a sterilizing dose

Chen

Aldridge

Gibson

et al. 2022

Pest Management Science

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“…A cooperative follow-up study to investigate bloodfeeding habit by USDA-Center for Medical, Agricultural, and Veterinary Entomology (CMAVE) and the Anastasia Mosquito Control District, St. Augustine, FL, demonstrated that if bloodfeeding opportunity is limited to only 15 min, irradiated females generally prefer not to take a blood meal (Cunningham et al 2020). Although it is not the only tissue damaged by radiation exposure, we suspect that damage to the female mosquito gonad tissue, as observed in Guthrie and Brust (1971) and Ali and Rozeboom (1972), may reduce female host-seeking and bloodfeeding behavior.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gamma-Irradiation Reduces Survivorship, Feeding Behavior, and Oviposition of Female Aedes aegypti

Aldridge¹,

Kline²,

Coburn³

et al. 2020

Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association

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Aedes aegypti is a prominent disease vector that is difficult to control through traditional integrated vector management due to its cryptic peridomestic immature-stage habitat and adult resting behavior, increasing resistance to pesticide formulations approved by the US Environmental Protection Agency, escalating deregistration of approved pesticides, and slow development of new effective chemical control measures. One novel method to control Ae. aegypti is the sterile insect technique (SIT) that leverages the mass release of irradiated (sterilized) males to overwhelm mate choice of natural populations of females. However, one potential liability of SIT is sex sorting errors prior to irradiation, resulting in accidental release of females. Our goal in this study was to test the extent to which irradiation affects female life-history parameters to assess the potential impacts of releasing irradiated females accidentally sorted with males. In this study, we determined that a radiation dose ≥30 Gy—a dose sufficient to sterilize males while preserving their mating competitiveness—may substantially impact longevity, bloodfeeding, oviposition, and egg hatch rate of female Ae. aegypti after being irradiated as pupae. These findings could reduce public concern for accidental release of females alongside irradiated males in an operational Ae. aegypti SIT control program.

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“…Therefore, the average lifespan of irradiated Aedes females may not be sufficient to consider them effective vectors. Moreover, the reduced survival and blood-feeding frequency observed in irradiated Aedes females (Bond et al, 2019;Cunningham et al, 2020), and the increased mortality resulting from the ingestion of an infected blood meal (Maciel-de-Freitas et al, 2011;da Silveira et al, 2018), can have a significant impact on the overall vectorial capacity and transmission efficiency of irradiated Aedes females accidentally released in an operational Aedes SIT program. In the present study, only one time point of infection was investigated (days 7 and 14 for CHIKV and DENV, respectively) with relatively small sample sizes.…”

Section: Dissemination Efficiency (Landw)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Radiation can also seriously alter symbiotic gut microbiota which is linked to the insect ecological fitness (Cai et al, 2018) and can affect immune responses that can influence vector competence for human pathogens (Dennison et al, 2014). Moreover, radiation can alter the feeding behavior and the survival rate of females under laboratory conditions (Cunningham et al, 2020). All of the aforementioned suggests the need for a more in-depth investigation of the effect of irradiation on vector competence in Aedes female mosquitoes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of Irradiation on Vector Competence of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae) for Dengue and Chikungunya Viruses

Balestrino

Bouyer

Vreysen

et al. 2022

Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.

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Effective control strategies against arthropod disease vectors are amongst the most powerful tools to prevent the spread of vector-borne diseases. The sterile insect technique (SIT) is an effective and sustainable autocidal control method that has recently shown effective population suppression against different Aedes vector species worldwide. The SIT approach for mosquito vectors requires the release of radio-sterilized male mosquitoes only, but currently available sex separation techniques cannot ensure the complete elimination of females resulting in short-term risk of increased biting rate and arboviral disease transmission. In this study, we compared for the first time the transmission of dengue and chikungunya viruses in Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus females exposed as pupae to an irradiation dose of 40 Gy. Females of both species were fed on blood spiked with either dengue or chikungunya viruses, and body parts were tested for virus presence by real-time RT-PCR at different time points. No differences were observed in the dissemination efficiency of the dengue virus in irradiated and unirradiated Ae. albopictus and Ae. aegypti mosquitoes. The dissemination of the chikungunya virus was higher in Ae. albopictus than in Ae. Aegypti, and irradiation increased the virus load in both species. However, we did not observe differences in the transmission efficiency for chikungunya (100%) and dengue (8–27%) between mosquito species, and irradiation did not impact transmissibility. Further implications of these results on the epidemiology of vector-borne diseases in the field are discussed.

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Effects of radiation on blood‐feeding activity of Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae)

Cited by 8 publications

References 9 publications

Developing the radiation‐based sterile insect technique (SIT) for controlling Aedes aegypti: identification of a sterilizing dose

Developing the radiation‐based sterile insect technique (SIT) for controlling Aedes aegypti: identification of a sterilizing dose

Gamma-Irradiation Reduces Survivorship, Feeding Behavior, and Oviposition of Female Aedes aegypti

Impact of Irradiation on Vector Competence of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae) for Dengue and Chikungunya Viruses

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