Superb feeding behavior of Aedes albopictus transmitting Zika virus

PLoS One. 2017 Sep 28;12(9):e0184871. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0184871. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Disease-mediated mosquitoes have been receiving much attention, as the World Health Organization recently declared the Zika virus a global public health emergency. Mosquitoes transmit pathogens that cause various tropical diseases including malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever as well as Zika virus. The vector efficiency of mosquitoes depends on their blood-feeding characteristics and the mechanics of their blood-sucking pump system, but only a few studies have attempted to investigate these key issues. In this study, we demonstrate the rapid and gluttonous liquid-feeding characteristics of Ae. albopictus which transmits Zika virus can be explained by similar proportion of two blood-sucking pumps and accelerated liquid intake driven by fast expanding of pumps. Our results provide insight into the vector efficiency of Ae. albopictus in terms of feeding velocity, pumping frequency, liquid-intake rate, and wall shear stress.

MeSH terms

  • Aedes / anatomy & histology
  • Aedes / physiology*
  • Aedes / ultrastructure
  • Animals
  • Feeding Behavior / physiology*
  • Female
  • Head / anatomy & histology
  • Imaging, Three-Dimensional
  • Probability
  • Rheology
  • Species Specificity
  • Zika Virus / physiology*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea grant funded by the Korean government (MSIP) (No. 2008-0061991). URL: http://www.nrf.re.kr/eng/main. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.