Microbiomes of Blood-Feeding Arthropods: Genes Coding for Essential Nutrients and Relation to Vector Fitness and Pathogenic Infections. A Review

Abstract

Background: Blood-feeding arthropods support a diverse array of symbiotic microbes, some of which facilitate host growth and development whereas others are detrimental to vector-borne pathogens. We found a common core constituency among the microbiota of 16 different arthropod blood-sucking disease vectors, including Bacillaceae, Rickettsiaceae, Anaplasmataceae, Sphingomonadaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonadaceae, Moraxellaceae and Staphylococcaceae. By comparing 21 genomes of common bacterial symbionts in blood-feeding vectors versus non-blooding insects, we found that certain enteric bacteria benefit their hosts by upregulating numerous genes coding for essential nutrients. Bacteria of blood-sucking vectors expressed significantly more genes (p p Leishmania) versus others that were detrimental (e.g., bacterial toxins in mosquitoes lethal to Plasmodium spp.).

Keywords

• vector-borne diseases
• eubacteria
• symbiotic microbes
• genomes
• enteric microbes
• endosymbionts