Ph.D. Student University of South Dakota Lafayette, Indiana
Common bed bugs, Cimex lectularius, are ectoparasites that feed on the blood of human hosts and are highly resistant to synthetic insecticides . Although bed bugs share numerous physiological and ecological traits with arthropods that can transmit human pathogens, bed bugs have never been associated with transmitting any infectious disease agents in nature. One hypothesis is that C. lectularius employs distinct anti-pathogen defenses that prevent the acquisition and transmission of pathogens. However, there has been little research on the immune system of C. lectularius which relies in part on cellular capabilities (hemocytes). Recently, the deployment of extracellular DNA traps (ETs) by bed bug hemocytes was documented for the first time by our lab upon exposure to a human pathogenic bacterium, Borrelia recurrentis. ETs are an innate cellular immune response that occurs in various types of granulocytes like mammalian neutrophils. However, ETs do not appear to be common in invertebrates and have not been observed in commonly studied insect models of immunity like Drosophila melanogaster, mosquitoes, or lice. The goal of this project is to begin to understand the regulation and the functions of C. lectularius hemocyte ETs. Here, we specifically explore the ability of different microbial signals (e.g., LPS, peptidoglycan, zymosan) to induce ET formation in bed bug hemocytes. This work will provide fundamental insight into bed bug cell biology and immunology, including mechanisms that may prevent the transmission of vector-borne pathogens and that may be novel targets for bed bug control.
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