ESA Annual Meetings Online Program
0368 Comparison of the humoral and cellular immune responses between body and head lice following bacterial challenge
Monday, November 14, 2011: 8:27 AM
Room A1, First Floor (Reno-Sparks Convention Center)
The differences in the immune response between body lice, Pediculus humanus humanus, and head lice, Pediculus humanus capitis, were investigated by measuring the proliferation rates of two model bacteria, a Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus and a Gram-negative Escherichia coli, following challenge by injection. Body lice showed a significantly reduced immune response compared to head lice particularly to E. coli at the early stage of the immune challenge. Annotation of the body and head louse genome identified substantially fewer immune-related genes compared with other insects. Nevertheless, all required genetic components of the major components of the major immune pathways, except for the Imd pathway, are still retained in both of the body and head louse genome. Transcriptional profiling of representative genes involved in the humoral immune response, following bacterial challenge, revealed that both body and head lice, regardless of their developmental stages, exhibited an increased immune response to S. aureus but little to E. coli in their whole body. The basal transcription levels of three important genes for the humoral immune responses, PGRP as a recognition gene and defensin1 and 2 as effector genes, were higher in the gut tissues of head lice than body lice. In addition, head lice exhibited a significantly higher phagocytotic activity against E. coli than body lice, whereas the phagocytosis against S. aureus differed only slightly between body and head lice. These findings suggest that head lice have more sensitive immune responses to invading bacteria than body lice and it could determine the difference in vector competence between these two louse species.
doi: 10.1603/ICE.2016.59026
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