Presentation Type

Poster

Full Name of Faculty Mentor

Paul E. Richardson, Chemistry

Major

Biochemistry

Presentation Abstract

Mosquitos are known to spread diseases throughout communities, including viruses, referred to as arboviruses. In 2017, DHEC reported 158 incidents of arboviruses in South Carolina, including West Nile, Dengue Fever, and Zika virus. The infections rate was up from the year before when 124 incidents of arboviruses were reported. Monitoring these infected mosquitos can be an asset for proper health protection in our community. Understanding what the mosquitoes are feeding on can help us better monitor the zoonosis threats that our community faces. A series of primers have been developed that target unique sequences in the cytochrome b gene in mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds, as well as sequences in the gene for human hemoglobin. With these primers, we were able to detect one or more possible blood meals that the mosquito had fed from. Thus, this project wants to determine what the mosquitoes in our area are feeding on to better understand the zoonosis threat to our community. Over this past year, our goal was mainly to identify whether the mosquito specimen had fed on human blood or blood that came from something other than a human, or in some cases, whether it had fed on both a human and something else. This data can then be combined with our future goal of developing techniques to detect arboviruses in the mosquitoes and identifying the bloodmeal source of those diseases.

Location

Poster Session 2

Start Date

13-4-2022 4:30 PM

End Date

13-4-2022 6:30 PM

Disciplines

Chemistry

Included in

Chemistry Commons

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Apr 13th, 4:30 PM Apr 13th, 6:30 PM

A Step in the Search for Arboviruses: Determining Blood Meals Eaten by Mosquitoes

Poster Session 2

Mosquitos are known to spread diseases throughout communities, including viruses, referred to as arboviruses. In 2017, DHEC reported 158 incidents of arboviruses in South Carolina, including West Nile, Dengue Fever, and Zika virus. The infections rate was up from the year before when 124 incidents of arboviruses were reported. Monitoring these infected mosquitos can be an asset for proper health protection in our community. Understanding what the mosquitoes are feeding on can help us better monitor the zoonosis threats that our community faces. A series of primers have been developed that target unique sequences in the cytochrome b gene in mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds, as well as sequences in the gene for human hemoglobin. With these primers, we were able to detect one or more possible blood meals that the mosquito had fed from. Thus, this project wants to determine what the mosquitoes in our area are feeding on to better understand the zoonosis threat to our community. Over this past year, our goal was mainly to identify whether the mosquito specimen had fed on human blood or blood that came from something other than a human, or in some cases, whether it had fed on both a human and something else. This data can then be combined with our future goal of developing techniques to detect arboviruses in the mosquitoes and identifying the bloodmeal source of those diseases.

 

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