Figures
PSG-parasite plug and ingested blood in a female sand fly revealed by non-invasive micro-computed tomography
False-colour 3D-surface model of a female sand fly, Lutzomyia longipalpis, 6 days after an infected blood meal and 1 day after a second, non-infected blood meal. The ingested blood in just the abdominal midgut (approximately 0.16 mm3 in volume) is shown as a reddish mass within the dark-green walls of the midgut. The thoracic midgut shows a lighter-green PSG-parasite plug located in the middle of the lumen, extending from the stomodeal valve at the anterior end all the way to the abdominal midgut. This plug obstructs the sand fly gut and enhances Leishmania parasite transmission. Hall et al. (2021)
Image Credit: Natural History Museum, London, UK
Citation: (2021) PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases Issue Image | Vol. 15(8) August 2021. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 15(8): ev15.i08. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pntd.v15.i08
Published: August 31, 2021
Copyright: © 2021 . This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
False-colour 3D-surface model of a female sand fly, Lutzomyia longipalpis, 6 days after an infected blood meal and 1 day after a second, non-infected blood meal. The ingested blood in just the abdominal midgut (approximately 0.16 mm3 in volume) is shown as a reddish mass within the dark-green walls of the midgut. The thoracic midgut shows a lighter-green PSG-parasite plug located in the middle of the lumen, extending from the stomodeal valve at the anterior end all the way to the abdominal midgut. This plug obstructs the sand fly gut and enhances Leishmania parasite transmission. Hall et al. (2021)
Image Credit: Natural History Museum, London, UK