Project description:The New World Screwworm (NWS), Cochliomyia hominivorax, is a pest insect that is endemic to subtropical and tropical regions of the Western Hemisphere. The female lays eggs in open wounds or orifices of warm-blooded animals. Upon hatching, the resulting larvae feed upon the host?s living tissues, which can become infected and death can occur. The sterile insect technique was developed to eradicate this pest from North America and new female conditional-lethal strains that generate only male individuals are being developed for use in the eradication program. To facilitate the identification of useful transcripts and gene promoters for these new strains, we used an Illumina Hi-Seq protocol to sequence the testes transcriptome of NWS. We report the assembly of 4149 transcripts (?200 nt) from testes dissected from NWS males obtained from the J06 strain used in the screwworm production plant in Pacora, Panama. Functional annotation resulted in 2060, 2031, 558, and 325 transcripts with assigned BlastX, Gene Ontology, Enzyme Codes, and KEGG pathway information, respectively. In the Gene Ontology annotations, 6% and 3% of the transcripts in the Biological Process Ontology were noted as Developmental Process and Reproduction, respectively. This data set will serve as a resource to facilitate studies of sex determination in the NWS and the development of recombinant vectors that can be used to create new male-only strains of NWS.
Project description:Myasis is the infestation by fly larvae (Diptera) in live vertebrates including humans. Myasis has been reported most commonly in tropical and subtropical areas around the world with poor sanitation and presence of cattle. Neonatal umbilical myiasis is an important cause of death in bovines and produces major economic losses in the livestock industry. However, its presentation in humans is rare, with a few cases reported worldwide. Moreover, umbilical myasis can be life-treating due to the risk of larvae migration to deeper tissues of the abdomen, omphalitis, and sepsis. We describe the case of a 7-day-old infant admitted to the hospital due to umbilical cord myiasis. In total, 55 larvae were removed from the wound and identified as Cochliomyia hominivorax. The patient recovered satisfactorily after treatment with ivermectin and amoxicillin. A literature search was performed in Pubmed, Medline, Lilacs and Google Scholar, with 64 cases of myasis by C. hominivorax being reviewed. Oral cavity, wounds, scalp and natural orifices are the main affected anatomical areas. Risk factors include the extremes of age, male sex, poor hygiene, alcohol and drug use, cancer, and mental disability. Programs for human myiasis prevention and surveillance are needed in neotropical areas where living conditions make it difficult to implement control strategies.