Figure 1.
Materials used to assemble the Glytube blood feeder device.
A. A conical tube (50 mL) filled with 40 mL warmed 100% glycerol and top sealed with Dura Seal™ heat-resistant sealing film. The sealing film is laterally held to the tube using a Parafilm-M® thin strip (2.5 cm×5.0 cm). B. Screw cap of the conical tube. Dashed circular black line indicates the cap region where plastic is removed by cutting to generate the feeding element. C. Screw cap with 2.5 cm diameter hole. D. Screw cap covered externally with stretched Parafilm-M. A strip of Parafilm is fixing the feeding membrane to the cap. E. A piece of Parafilm-M (5 cm×5 cm) as a feeding membrane. Parafilm must be stretched to cover the screw cap. F. A piece of Dura Seal heat-resistant sealing film is used to sealing the conical tube filled with pre-heated 100% glycerol. G. Blood supplying the feeding element at internal side of the screw cap with the stretched Parafilm membrane. H. Heating and feeding elements assembled together to feed the Ae. aegypti females. I. Non blood-fed (black arrowhead) and artificially blood-fed females with dilated abdomens (black arrows).
Figure 2.
Schematic representation of the Glytube.
A. Exploded drawing showing the materials used to prepare the device and elements order to assemble the in-house feeder. B. View of assembled Glytube before mosquito feeding.
Figure 3.
Blood-feeding efficiency of the Glytube feeder device compared with mice blood-fed females.
The experiments were done in three biological replicates, two with three and another one with six independent experiments. To generate blood-feeding efficiency, the number of engorged females after 30 minutes of feeding was divided by total number of females allowed to feed. The numbers of females fed on Glytube or mice were not significantly different by Mann-Whitney test (p = 0.1189).
Table 1.
Aedes aegypti blood-feeding efficiency after 30 minutes between two methods.