An insight into the body louse, Pediculus humanus (Frisco strain), salivary gland contents.

ABSTRACT: Human body lice, Pediculus humanushumanus, are blood-feeding parasites that live in human clothing and feed several times per day.Saliva from louse bites induces local inflammation in the skin, pruiritis,and, if untreated, chronic Pediculosis has systemic negative health effects.Despite the well-established medical importance of body lice and their longstanding coevolution with humans, characterization of their saliva has been very limited.To address this, we extracted RNA and protein from two of the body louse’s morphologically distinct, sets of salivary glands (Bean-shaped and U-shaped) and generated transcript and protein profiles for each.Additionally, we performed fluorescent staining and confocal microscopy on each gland type to enhance descriptions of their morphology and detail their gross cellular architecture and arrangement.Analysis of the body louse salivary gene products and proteins revealed that the overwhelming majority were not closely related to biomolecules of known function; highlighting the organism’s unique and understudied saliva composition.Unexpectedly, and despite the contrasting morphology of the 2 gland types, there was ahigh degree of overlap in the salivary products produced.This finding suggests a strongDarwinian selection pressure to maintain both salivary glands types, given that it would seemingly be simpler to have a single morphologically homogeneous set of salivary glands.Here, we present the first next-generation sequencing and proteomic characterization of the human body louse sialome, discuss the potential physiological importance of louse salivary proteins, and present possible explanations for why lice have such a complex salivary gland organization despite ahigh degree of redundancy in protein repertoires between Bean and U-shaped salivary glands.

INSTRUMENT(S): Orbitrap Fusion Lumos

ORGANISM(S): Pediculus Humanus Corporis

TISSUE(S): Salivary Gland

SUBMITTER: Stephen Lu  

LAB HEAD: Stephen Lu

PROVIDER: PXD058011 | Pride | 2025-02-19

REPOSITORIES: pride