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Bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) as vectors of Trypanosoma cruzi.

ABSTRACT: Populations of the common bed bug, Cimex lectularius, have recently undergone explosive growth. Bed bugs share many important traits with triatomine insects, but it remains unclear whether these similarities include the ability to transmit Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiologic agent of Chagas disease. Here, we show efficient and bidirectional transmission of T. cruzi between hosts and bed bugs in a laboratory environment. Most bed bugs that fed on experimentally infected mice acquired the parasite. A majority of previously uninfected mice became infected after a period of cohabitation with exposed bed bugs. T. cruzi was also transmitted to mice after the feces of infected bed bugs were applied directly to broken host skin. Quantitative bed bug defecation measures were similar to those of important triatomine vectors. Our findings suggest that the common bed bug may be a competent vector of T. cruzi and could pose a risk for vector-borne transmission of Chagas disease.

SUBMITTER: Salazar R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4347337 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) as vectors of Trypanosoma cruzi.

Salazar Renzo R Castillo-Neyra Ricardo R Tustin Aaron W AW Borrini-Mayorí Katty K Náquira César C Levy Michael Z MZ

The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene 20141117 2

Populations of the common bed bug, Cimex lectularius, have recently undergone explosive growth. Bed bugs share many important traits with triatomine insects, but it remains unclear whether these similarities include the ability to transmit Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiologic agent of Chagas disease. Here, we show efficient and bidirectional transmission of T. cruzi between hosts and bed bugs in a laboratory environment. Most bed bugs that fed on experimentally infected mice acquired the parasite. A ...[more]

PMID: 25404068

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Project description:The global population growth of the bed bug, Cimex lectularius (L.), is attributed to their cryptic behavior, diverse insecticide resistance mechanisms, and lack of public awareness. Bed bug control can be challenging and typically requires chemical and non-chemical treatments. One common non-chemical method for bed bug management is thermal remediation. However, in certain instances, bed bugs are known to survive heat treatments. Bed bugs may be present after a heat treatment due to (i) abiotic factors associated with the inability to achieve lethal temperatures in harborage areas for a sufficient time period, (ii) re-infestation from insects that escaped to cooler areas during a heat treatment or (iii) development of physiological resistance that allows them to survive heat exposure. Previous research has investigated the optimal temperature and exposure time required for either achieving complete mortality or sublethally affecting their growth and development. However, no research has examined bed bug populations for their ability to develop resistance to heat exposure and variation in thermo-tolerance between different bed bug strains. The goals of this study were: i) to determine if bed bugs could be selected for heat resistance under a laboratory selection regime, and ii) to determine if bed bug populations with various heat exposure histories, insecticide resistance profiles, and geographic origins have differential temperature tolerances using two heat exposure techniques (step-function and ramp-function). Selection experiments found an initial increase in bed bug survivorship; however, survivorship did not increase past the fourth generation. Sublethal exposure to heat significantly reduced bed bug feeding and, in some cases, inhibited development. The step-function exposure technique revealed non-significant variation in heat tolerance between populations and the ramp-function exposure technique provided similar results. Based on these study outcomes, the ability of bed bugs to develop heat resistance appears to be limited.

Project description:BackgroundBed bugs (Cimex lectularius) are blood-feeding insects poised to become one of the major pests in households throughout the United States. Resistance of C. lectularius to insecticides/pesticides is one factor thought to be involved in its sudden resurgence. Despite its high-impact status, scant knowledge exists at the genomic level for C. lectularius. Hence, we subjected the C. lectularius transcriptome to 454 pyrosequencing in order to identify potential genes involved in pesticide resistance.Methodology and principal findingsUsing 454 pyrosequencing, we obtained a total of 216,419 reads with 79,596,412 bp, which were assembled into 35,646 expressed sequence tags (3902 contigs and 31744 singletons). Nearly 85.9% of the C. lectularius sequences showed similarity to insect sequences, but 44.8% of the deduced proteins of C. lectularius did not show similarity with sequences in the GenBank non-redundant database. KEGG analysis revealed putative members of several detoxification pathways involved in pesticide resistance. Lamprin domains, Protein Kinase domains, Protein Tyrosine Kinase domains and cytochrome P450 domains were among the top Pfam domains predicted for the C. lectularius sequences. An initial assessment of putative defense genes, including a cytochrome P450 and a glutathione-S-transferase (GST), revealed high transcript levels for the cytochrome P450 (CYP9) in pesticide-exposed versus pesticide-susceptible C. lectularius populations. A significant number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (296) and microsatellite loci (370) were predicted in the C. lectularius sequences. Furthermore, 59 putative sequences of Wolbachia were retrieved from the database.ConclusionsTo our knowledge this is the first study to elucidate the genetic makeup of C. lectularius. This pyrosequencing effort provides clues to the identification of potential detoxification genes involved in pesticide resistance of C. lectularius and lays the foundation for future functional genomics studies.

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Bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) as vectors of Trypanosoma cruzi.

Publications

Bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) as vectors of Trypanosoma cruzi.

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