Feeding electrograms and fluid uptake measurements of cattle tick Boophilus microplus attached on artificial membranes

Physiological characterization of the hematophagy ofOrnithodoros rostratus(Acari: Argasidae) on live hosts

“…In ixodid ticks, the duration of the resting period is considerably longer (from 22 s to over 1 min) (Sweatman and Gregson, 1970) and resting times can represent up to 96% of a single feeding complex (Tatchell et al, 1971). The duration of feeding complexes can be influenced by several factors such as period of daylight and darkness, female size, host and diet temperature, and diet composition, among others (Gregson, 1969;Sweatman and Gregson, 1970;Tatchell et al, 1971;Waladde et al, 1979).…”

“…These muscles are responsible for the generation of negative pressures during blood feeding, thus allowing blood to enter their digestive system. These techniques have been used in the past to study blood feeding in several groups of arthropods such as aphids (McLean and Kinsey, 1964), mosquitoes (Choumet et al, 2012;Griffiths and Gordon, 1952;Kashin and Wakely, 1965), tsetse flies (Margalit et al, 1972), cimicids (Araujo et al, 2009a), triatomines (Smith and Friend, 1970;Soares et al, 2014Soares et al, , 2006 and ixodid ticks (Bockenstedt et al, 2014;Gregson, 1969;Richter et al, 2013;Sweatman and Gregson, 1970;Tatchell et al, 1971;Waladde et al, 1979). Although they have been used for insects and ixodid ticks, there is an obvious lack of information for argasid ticks, as few studies have focused on the physiology of their feeding process.…”

Establishment of Boophilus microplus Infected with Babesia bigemina by Using in vitro Tube Feeding Technique.

“…The tube feeding technique need pre-fed ticks, so at least one cattle was required to supply the pre-fed female ticks. Using the membrane system, that is another in vitro feeding system [5,6,9,[12][13][14][15][16], the more numbers of experimental cattle could be saved. The second advantage of the technique is that the relationship between tick and protozoa can be studied quantitavely.…”

“…To save the numbers of experimental animals and study the relationship between ticks and tick-borne protozoa more directly, many in vitro feeding techniques have been reported [9,12,[14][15][16] since the first method had attempted [1]. B. microplus can also feed host blood through both membranes [5,6,13] and capillary tubes [17]. Thus we tried to establish a laboratory colony of B. microplus infected with B. bigemina by using one of the in vitro feeding techniques.…”

Laboratory artificial infection of hard ticks: a tool for the analysis of tick-borne pathogen transmission

“…Since then, several membranes from different animal origins have been used with variable success to engorge ticks, including pieces of cattle skin for R. microplus (Kemp et al 1975) and A. variegatum FIGURE 2: View of attached I. ricinus nymphs on a rabbit skin used in the membrane feeding system. (Voigt et al 1993;Young et al 1996), calf mesentery and modified Baudruche membranes for R. microplus (Kemp et al 1975;Waladde et al 1979) and R. appendiculatus (Waladde et al 1991;Young et al 1996), rabbit skin for A. variegatum (Voigt et al 1993;Young et al 1996), D. andersoni (Howarth and Hokama 1983), R. appendiculatus (Musyoki et al 2004) and I. ricinus (Bonnet et al 2007) (Figure 2), mouse skin for D. andersoni (Howarth and Hokama 1983;Paine et al 1983) and I. scapularis (Burkot et al 2001), and gerbil skin for I. ricinus (Bonnet et al 2007). Membranes of non-animal origin made from silicone have also been used with success, particularly for feeding the different instars of A. hebraeum (Kuhnert et al 1995), I. ricinus females (Krober and Guerin 2007b), A. cajennense adults (de Moura et al 1997), and recently H. anatolicum anatolicum and H. dromedarii (Tajeri and Razmi 2011).…”