New Developments in the Control of Human Lice

Clark, J. Marshall

doi:10.1002/9783527802883.ch6

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…Body lice constitute a serious health threat as vectors of severely pathogenic bacteria ( Roux & Raoult, 1999 ), and head lice infestations have been estimated to cause costs of hundreds of million dollars every year ( Hansen & O’Haver, 2004 ). Recently, increasing resistance to available treatments has become a major challenge to human louse control ( Burgess, 2004 ; Clark, 2018 ; Clark et al., 2015 ; Durand et al., 2012 ), creating the need for novel resistance-proof management programs. The overlooked transmission patterns of PGE in both ecotypes could help us better understand how pesticide resistance evolves in lice populations, as haploid versus diploid expression in males will affect the likelihood of spread of recessive resistance alleles, as well as their effects in males and females.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lack of paternal silencing and ecotype-specific expression in head and body lice hybrids

Marshall,

de la Filia,

Cavalieri

et al. 2024

Evolution Letters

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Paternal genome elimination (PGE) is a non-Mendelian inheritance system, described in numerous arthropod species, in which males develop from fertilized eggs, but their paternally inherited chromosomes are eliminated before or during spermatogenesis. Therefore, PGE males only transmit their maternally inherited set of chromosomes to their offspring. In addition to the elimination of paternal chromosomes, diverse PGE species have also repeatedly evolved the transcriptional silencing of the paternal genome, making males effectively haploid. However, it is unclear if this paternal chromosome silencing is mechanistically linked to the chromosome elimination or has evolved at a later stage, and if so, what drives the haploidization of males under PGE. In order to understand these questions, here we study the human louse, Pediculus humanus, which represents an ideal model system, as it appears to be the only instance of PGE where males eliminate, but not silence their paternal chromosomes, although the latter remains to be shown conclusively. In this study, we analyzed parent-of-origin allele-specific expression patterns in male offspring of crosses between head and body lice ecotypes. We show that hybrid adult males of P. humanus display biparental gene expression, which constitutes the first case of a species with PGE in which genetic activity of paternal chromosomes in the soma is not affected by embryonic silencing or (partial or complete) elimination. We did however also identify a small number of maternally biased genes (potentially imprinted genes), which may be involved in the elimination of paternal chromosomes during spermatogenesis. Finally, we have identified genes that show ecotype-specific expression bias. Given the low genetic diversity between ecotypes, this is suggestive for a role of epigenetic processes in ecotype differences.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lack of paternal silencing and ecotype-specific expression in head and body lice hybrids

Marshall,

de la Filia,

Cavalieri

et al. 2024

Evolution Letters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Body lice constitute a serious health threat as vectors of severely pathogenic bacteria (Roux and Raoult, 1999) and head lice infestations have been estimated to cause costs of hundreds of million dollars every year (Hansen and O'Haver, 2004). Recently, increasing resistance to available treatments has become a major challenge to human louse control (Burgess, 2004;Durand et al, 2012;Clark et al, 2015;Clark, 2018), creating the need for novel resistance-proof management programmes. The overlooked transmission patterns of PGE in both ecotypes could inform novel pediculicide-free management strategies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lack of paternal silencing and ecotype-specific expression in head and body lice hybrids

Marshall

Filia

Cavalieri

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Paternal genome elimination (PGE) is a non-Mendelian inheritance system in which males develop from fertilised eggs but their paternally-inherited chromosomes are eliminated before or during spermatogenesis. Therefore, PGE males only transmit their maternally inherited set of chromosomes to their offspring. PGE has been described in numerous arthropod species, many of which are pests or parasites, posing a severe economic burden on crop production and/or with implications for human health. In order to understand how PGE has evolved on the molecular level, to potentially develop novel control strategies, we need to examine species which display basal forms of PGE. The human louse,Pediculus humanus, represents an ideal model system to understand the molecular underpinnings of PGE. In this study we analysed parent-of-origin allele specific expression patterns in male offspring of crosses between head and body lice ecotypes. We have shown that hybrid adult males ofP. humanusdisplay biparental gene expression, which constitutes the first known case of a species with PGE in which genetic activity of paternal chromosomes in the soma is not affected by embryonic heterochromatinization or (partial or complete) elimination. We have also identified maternally-biased genes (potentially imprinted genes) which may be involved in the elimination of paternal chromosomes during spermatogenesis. Finally, we have identified genes which show ecotype-specific expression bias. Given the low genetic diversity between ecotypes this is suggestive for a role of epigenetic processes in ecotype differences. These findings have implications for models of pediculicide resistance in human lice and for the development of novel epigenetic-mediated control strategies.

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New Developments in the Control of Human Lice

Cited by 2 publications

References 72 publications

Lack of paternal silencing and ecotype-specific expression in head and body lice hybrids

Lack of paternal silencing and ecotype-specific expression in head and body lice hybrids

Lack of paternal silencing and ecotype-specific expression in head and body lice hybrids

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