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Haemoglobin crystals in the midgut of the tick Ornithodorus moubata Murray

Abstract

Ticks of the Ornithodorus moubata Murray (Ixodoidea, Argasidae) complex, distributed through East Africa, are known as vectors of African relapsing fever1. A laboratory strain of O. moubata porcinus (originally from Tanzania and bred according to the method of Geigy and Herbig1) uses the guinea-pig (Cavia porcellus L.) as experimental host. Guinea pig blood crystallises more easily than that of other hosts2 in the gut of blood-sucking arthropods3. In O. moubata crystals appear 5–10 d after the blood meal, first small (0.015–0.05 mm) and clear red, later up to 0.2 mm in all three directions and dark red. These ‘tick-grown’ crystals may still be present after even more than a year. They possibly serve as nutrient reserve4 since they finally disappear after prolonged starvation. We describe here a study of the formation and structure of these crystals and the changes within these crystals with time. We show the crystals to be composed principally of guinea-pig haemoglobin.

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SMIT, J., GRANDJEAN, O., GUGGENHEIM, R. et al. Haemoglobin crystals in the midgut of the tick Ornithodorus moubata Murray. Nature 266, 536–538 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1038/266536a0

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