Tracking zoonotic pathogens using blood-sucking flies as 'flying syringes'

Abstract

About 60% of emerging infectious diseases in humans are of zoonotic origin. Their increasing number requires the development of new methods for early detection and monitoring of infectious agents in wildlife. Here, we investigated whether blood meals from hematophagous flies could be used to identify the infectious agents circulating in wild vertebrates. To this aim, 1230 blood-engorged flies were caught in the forests of Gabon. Identified blood meals (30%) were from 20 vertebrate species including mammals, birds and reptiles. Among them, 9% were infected by different extant malaria parasites among which some belonged to known parasite species, others to new parasite species or to parasite lineages for which only the vector was known. This study demonstrates that using hematophagous flies as ‘flying syringes’ constitutes an interesting approach to investigate blood-borne pathogen diversity in wild vertebrates and could be used as an early detection tool of zoonotic pathogens.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.22069.001

Blood meal analysis of tsetse flies (Glossina pallidipes: Glossinidae) reveals higher host fidelity on wild compared with domestic hosts

“…Haplotype networks comparing cytb variation within host species that tsetse had fed on from Kenya and Tanzania indicated the potential to use intraspecific variation in mammals to infer patterns of host movement and connectivity, if more variable genetic markers were used. The value of blood-feeding arthropods as “flying syringes” (Bitome-Essono et al . 2017) could thus have added value for noninvasive sampling of wild animals for conservation genetics purposes and to infer connectivity among hosts that could inform epidemiological models, rather than just identifying hosts and pathogens to species.…”

“…We identified the dominant hosts for 46% of the G. pallidipes samples screened (56% of the samples that showed positive amplification products), which is comparable or higher than previous studies using the same primers (Auty et al . 2016a; Bitome-Essono et al . 2017).…”

“…1988). Although this approach has typically focused on vectors of particular pathogens, it has also been proposed that blood-sucking flies that do not themselves transmit the focal parasites could be used as “flying syringes” to investigate blood-borne pathogen diversity (Bitome-Essono et al . 2017; Hoffmann et al .…”

Blood-meal analysis of Culicoides (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) reveals a broad host range and new species records for Romania

“…The identification of blood sources from engorged vectors is a useful method to understand vector-host interactions and the ecology of associated pathogens [30,31]. The host-feeding patterns of Culicoides have received much less attention compared to other vector groups (e.g.…”

A superhydrophobic cone to facilitate the xenomonitoring of filarial parasites, malaria, and trypanosomes using mosquito excreta/feces

“…As control programmes for other vector-borne diseases, such as Human African Trypanosomiasis 12 and malaria 13 , continue to make progress towards elimination, MX could have a similar role to play in the monitoring of community infection levels by using insect vectors as ‘flying syringes’ 14 . Sensitive detection of the causative agents of malaria and trypanosomiasis has been demonstrated using MX 15 16 .…”