Sequential blood meals promote Leishmania replication and reverse metacyclogenesis augmenting vector infectivity.

ABSTRACT: Sand flies, similar to most vectors, take multiple blood meals during their lifetime^1-4. The effect of subsequent blood meals on pathogens developing in the vector and their impact on disease transmission have never been examined. Here, we show that ingestion of a second uninfected blood meal by Leishmania-infected sand flies triggers dedifferentiation of metacyclic promastigotes, considered a terminally differentiated stage inside the vector ⁵ , to a leptomonad-like stage, the retroleptomonad promastigote. Reverse metacyclogenesis occurs after every subsequent blood meal where retroleptomonad promastigotes rapidly multiply and differentiate to metacyclic promastigotes enhancing sand fly infectiousness. Importantly, a subsequent blood meal amplifies the few Leishmania

SUBMITTER: Serafim TD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6007031 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature