Wolbachia infection in the horn fly Haematobia irritans

The horn fly is a serious pest of cattle, and the control of this pest has become a problem for cattle producers in the United States and other parts of the world. Therefore, novel technologies that could be integrated into existing control strategies would be an important contribution to the cattle industry. Wolbachia, an intracellular bacterium, represents a possible solution- innate reproductive and genetic manipulations act as a natural population check. As this widespread genus infects many disease-causing filarial nematodes and arthropod disease vectors, Wolbachia research has widespread implications for global health. The major surface protein of Wolbachia is commonly used to identify, localize, and understand Wolbachia-host interactions. In our study, we confirmed the presence of a Wolbachia infection in a long-term lab colony of Haematobia irritans and sought to classify this strain based on standard MLST techniques.