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The Neglected saliva: medically important toxins in the saliva of human lice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2011

D. Jones
D. Jones
Affiliation:
Graduate Center for Toxicology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40536-0305, USA
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Summary

Although there has been a great deal of research effort within the last two decades on identifying the active components of the saliva of blood-sucking ticks, mosquitoes, biting flies, fleas and bugs, essentially neglected have been the human lice. Despite initial reports in the early part of this century suggestive of vasodilatory, anticoagulant and immunosuppressive properties of the saliva, for the next 50 years there were no biochemical studies on the active principles. Very recently, anatomical and biochemical studies have begun to characterize the bioactive molecules in lice saliva. The louse stocks a salivary vasodilator in excess over what is needed for a single bite, and injects similar amounts at each successive bite. The vasodilator in lice saliva appears to have different pharmacological properties than peroxidative, oxidative and maxidilan types of vasodilators reported from other blood-sucking insects. Possible anticoagulant activities have also been characterized. This belated, but welcome, interest comes at a time of resurgence of lice-born disease in certain parts of Africa, and of resistance to chemical control in Europe and North America.

Keywords

PediculusPhthiruslicesalivasalivary glandwaspparasite.
Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 116 , supplement S1: Symposia of the British Society for Parasitology Volume 35: Parasite-insect interactions: reciprocal manipulation , 1998 , pp. S73 - S81
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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