About Leptotrombidium deliense

There are very few known human diseases that involve pathogens transmitted by mites; the most important is tsutsugamushi disease, or scrub typhus, caused by the bacterium (Orientia tsutsugamushi) that is transmitted by several members of the genus Leptotrombidium (/ˌlɛptoʊtrɒmˈbɪdiəm/) (Family Trombiculidae) in south eastern Asia, Australia and the pacific islands (Mullen and Durden, 2002).

The life cycle of the mite includes 7 stages: egg, deutovum (or prelarva), larva, nymphochrysalis, nymph, imagochrysalis and adult. Of these stages only the larva (known as 'chiggers') is an ectoparasitic stage which feeds on a wide variety of hosts (rodents, but also occasionally humans and other large mammals) , whereas the nymphs and adults are predators of other arthropods (Makepeace B.L. et al,
"Genomes of trombidid mites reveal novel predicted allergens and laterally transferred genes associated with secondary metabolism
", Giga Science, 2018). Larvae ingest tissue exudates via a feeding tube ('stylostome') that is formed at the attachemnet site, but which is extraneous to the larval mouthparts.

Strain UoL-UT

Leptotrombidium deliense isolate UoL-UT collected from Berdmore's ground squirrels (Menetes berdmorei) captured in Udonthani Province, Thailand, in September 2015. BioSample record SAMN06473100.

UoL-UT represents an isolate from the wild, and is not a propagated laboratory strain. It was used for the generation of the VectorBase reference assembly LdelU1

Sources: Vectorbase.org and Wikipedia.

Picture credit: Dr Kittipong Chaisiri, Mahidol University

Taxonomy ID 299467

Data source University of Liverpool

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