253 - Designing an Artificial Blood Meal (ABM) for the Feeding of Aedes aegypti

Abstract: Mosquito-transmitted diseases such as Zika, West Nile, Chikungunya, dengue, and malaria severely threaten global health. Research into mosquito-borne illnesses and rearing for sterile insect technology poses a serious challenge because fresh blood-feeding to rear female mosquitoes is difficult from logistical, ethical, economical, and safety perspectives. A new meal has been identified; an aqueous solution for feeding the disease vector Aedes aegypti that does not contain liquid blood (an artificial blood meal; ABM) has been developed to reduce the challenges associated with transporting and storing blood for rearing purposes. The novel component of this meal is dried porcine blood meal that is hypothesized to contain a preserved phagostimulant, which promotes mosquito feeding. Additional ingredients in this ABM formulation include phosphate-buffered saline as a solvent and a commercial-grade milk protein. The dry meal is shelf-stable and can be held at room temperature. This ABM encourages oogenesis as engorged mosquitoes have been shown to produce viable eggs under similar hatching and rearing conditions as fresh blood-fed mosquitoes. Additionally, the dry mixture can be produced at a significantly lower cost than that of defibrinated bovine blood, which is the standard for mosquito feeding. The dry mixture does not require expensive phagostimulants like adenosine triphosphate (ATP) or refrigerated, proteinaceous whole-blood derivatives.