Esperanza Negrón, e_negron24@yahoo.com1, Norileyda Abreu, leyda_83@hotmail.com1, Katharina Dittmar, katharinad@gmail.com2, Edu Beatriz Suarez, edu6@yahoo.com1, Larry G. Arlian, larry.arlian@wright.edu3, Frederico Montealegre, fmontealegre@psm.edu4, and Michael Whiting, michael_whiting@byu.edu2. (1) Universidad de Puerto Rico, Departamento de Biologia, P.O. Box 7186, Ponce, PR, PR, (2) Brigham Young University, Dept. of Integrative Biology, 401 Widstoe Building, Provo, UT, (3) Wright State University, Department of Biological Sciences, 3640 Col. Glenn Hwy, Dayton, OH, (4) Ponce School of Medicine, Microbiology, P.O. 7004, Ponce, PR, PR
With a significant portion of the population affected by mite allergies, it is essential to improve our understanding of these organisms. Knowledge of the evolutionary relationships of allergenic domestic mites can greatly contribute to our understanding of allergen evolution and subsequently lead to a better definition of control strategies. Most domestic mites (e.g. the combined group of storage mites and pyroglyphid house dust mites) have species-specific properties of their allergenic products, some are known to have cross reactions. We present a first molecular phylogeny of these mites based on 12 ingroup taxa, and five genes (mitochondrial and nuclear), and explore the evolutionary patterns of allergens and their IgE binding reactivity in the light of mite phylogeny.
Species 1: Acari Glycyphagidae
Species 2: Acari Pyroglyphidae
Keywords: Mites, Phylogeny
