| | |
Summary: Strategies of the home-team:
symbioses exploited for vector-borne
disease control
Rita V.M. Rio1
, Youjia Hu1,2
and Serap Aksoy1
1
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
2
Department of Biology, Shanghai Institute of Pharmaceutical Industry, Shanghai 200040, China
Symbioses between eukaryotes and unicellular organ-
isms are quite common, with examples copiously disse-
minated throughout the earth's biota. Arthropods, in
particular, owe much of their ecological success to their
microbial flora, which often provide supplements either
lacking in the limited host diet or which the hosts are
unable to synthesize. In addition to harboring beneficial
microbes, many arthropods (vectors) also transmit
pathogens to the animals and plants upon which they
prey. Vector-borne diseases exact a high public health
|
