Plasmodium reticulum, the causative agent for avian malaria (a protozoan), and Dirofilaria immitis, the causative agent for canine heartworm (a filarial nematode), are 2 obligate parasites transmitted by mosquitoes. The objective of this project was to identify whether either parasite was present in Tennessee mosquitoes and to illustrate the need for collecting spatial and temporal vector-parasite data. During 2012, mosquitoes were collected from the East Tennessee Research and Education Center (ETREC) in eastern Tennessee and the Ames Plantation Research and Education Center (AMES) in western Tennessee using CO(2) traps and gravid traps. Once mosquitoes were identified to species, their heads and thoraces were pooled in groups of ≤10, and the entire pool underwent DNA extraction and parasite amplification via polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for Plasmodium and Haemoproteus parasite DNA (cytochrome b) and for Dirofilaria species DNA (internal transcribed spacer-2 ribosomal DNA). All positive PCR amplicons were bidirectionally sequenced to confirm positivity and to identify the potential parasite genotype. This approach resulted in 762 mosquito pools, 150 pools from AMES and 612 pools from ETREC. In total, 3,260 mosquitoes were collected, representing 28 mosquito species. The 3 abundant genera were Culex (2,440 specimens, 74.8%), Aedes (720, 22.1%), and Anopheles (85, 2.6%). The remaining specimens included 13 Psorophora, 1 Orthopodomyia signiferia, and 1 Coquillettidia perturbans. Of the 150 pools from AMES, 1 pool (0.7%) was positive for avian malaria and 12 pools (8.0%) were positive for canine heartworm. Of the 612 pools from ETREC, 61 pools (10.0%) were positive for avian malaria and 8 pools (1.3%) were positive for canine heartworm. Positive pools for both Plasmodium and Dirofilaria were primarily Culex pipiens and occurred later in the season. The confirmation of the agents for avian malaria and canine heartworm illustrates the need for concurrent spatial and temporal studies using different trapping methods. The confirmation of avian malaria and canine heartworm in Tennessee illustrates the need for concurrent spatial and temporal studies. Future studies incriminating the potential vector populations will begin to unravel the complex relationships that intimately tie together hosts, vectors, and parasites. Results provide a significant contribution to the knowledge of the diversity of mosquito parasites present in Tennessee, and the presence of positive field populations warrants additional research exploring the environmental factors contributing to transmission.
We discuss the synthesis of infrared-emitting conjugated polymer nanoparticles and their use in biological imaging. The image shows the vasculature of a mouse brain imaged with conjugated polymer nanoparticles (M. Liu et al., Angew. Chem., Int. Ed., 2021, 60, 983–989).
Tracking the biodistribution of cell therapies is crucial for understanding their safety and efficacy. Optical imaging techniques are particularly useful for tracking cells due to their clinical translatability and potential for intra-operative use to validate cell delivery. However, there is a lack of appropriate optical probes for cell tracking. The only FDA-approved material for clinical use is indocyanine green (ICG). ICG can be used for both fluorescence and photoacoustic imaging, but is prone to photodegradation, and at higher concentrations, undergoes quenching and can adversely affect cell health. We have developed novel near-infrared imaging probes comprising conjugated polymer nanoparticles (CPNs™) that can be fine-tuned to absorb and emit light at specific wavelengths. To compare the performance of the CPNs™ with ICG forin vivocell tracking, labelled mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) were injected subcutaneously in mice and detected using fluorescence imaging (FI) and a form of photoacoustic imaging called multispectral optoacoustic tomography (MSOT). MSCs labelled with either ICG or CPN™ 770 could be detected with FI, but only CPN™ 770-labelled MSCs could be detected with MSOT. These results show that CPNs™ show great promise for tracking cellsin vivousing optical imaging techniques, and for some applications, out-perform ICG.
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