Speaker
Description
Introduction
Leishmaniasis is a vector-borne disease caused by protozoa of the genus Leishmania and remains a significant public health concern in tropical regions. In its vectors, blood feeding provides a suitable environment for parasite establishment in the female gut. Understanding the proteome associated with blood digestion may contribute to studies on vector competence and insect biology. Here, we compared the proteomes of different tissues from uninfected female Lutzomyia longipalpis, the main vector of visceral leishmaniasis in the Americas, subjected to blood and sugar feeding.
Methods
Blood-fed and sugar-fed L. longipalpis females were dissected, and their proteins were analyzed by LC-MS/MS using a bottom-up discovery proteomics approach. Proteins with differential metabolic functions in gut and body samples were identified using Perseus and UniProt annotations, and analyzed through orthology inference, multiple sequence alignment, and phylogenetic reconstruction using OrthoFinder, MAFFT, IQ-TREE, VectorBase, and NCBI Blast.
Results
Approximately 9,000 proteins were identified and grouped into four categories: blood-induced gut proteins, sugar-induced gut proteins, blood-induced body proteins, and sugar-induced body proteins. Comparative analyses revealed protein sets exclusive to sand flies as well as orthologs shared among hematophagous insects. Blood-induced gut proteins exclusive to sand flies emerged as promising markers of the digestive process.
Keywords
Lutzomyia, proteome, digestion, blood feeding, sugar feeding
| Registration ID | OHS26-31 |
|---|---|
| Professional Status of the Speaker | PhD Student |
| Junior Scientist Status | Yes, I am a Junior Scientist. |
Author
Co-authors
External references
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