An insight into the sialome, mialome and virome of the horn fly, Haematobia irritans.

Background: The horn fly (Haematobia irritans) is an obligate blood feeder that causes considerable economic losses in livestock industries worldwide. The control of this cattle pest is mainly based on insecticides; unfortunately, in many regions, horn flies have developed resistance. Vaccines or biological control have been proposed as alternative control methods, but the available information about the biology or physiology of this parasite is rather scarce.

Evaluation of Hematobin as a Vaccine Candidate to Control Haematobia irritans (Diptera: Muscidae) Loads in Cattle.

The horn fly, Haematobia irritans (L.), is a blood-sucking livestock ectoparasite responsible for substantial livestock losses. In the present work, the potential use of recombinant hematobin (HTB), a horn fly salivary protein, as an antigen for cattle vaccination was investigated.

A Natural Cattle Immune Response Against Horn Fly (Diptera: Muscidae) Salivary Antigens May Regulate Parasite Blood Intake.

The horn fly, Haematobia irritans (L.), is a blood-sucking ectoparasite that is responsible for sizeable economic losses in livestock. The salivary gland products facilitate blood intake.

Development of novel valerolactam-benzimidazole hybrids anthelmintic derivatives: Diffusion and biotransformation studies in helminth parasites.

In the search for new anthelmintics able to overcome the resistance problem against all available drugs in livestock, the synthesis of novel valerolactam-benzimidazole hybrid compounds was reported. This allowed us to obtain these in vitro and in vivo bioactive compounds using Nippostrongylus brasiliensis rat model by integrating physiology-based assays and ex vivo diffusion studies. In order to further study those novel hybrid molecules, Haemonchus contortus (a sheep gastrointestinal nematode of interest) and Mesocestoides vogae tetrathyridia (a useful system to study the efficacy of anthelmintic drugs against cestoda) were used as parasite models to compare the ex vivo patterns of diffusion and biotransformation of benzimidazoles and their valerolactam-benzimidazole hybrid derivatives.

Accessibility of blood affects the attractiveness of cattle to horn flies.

The burden of infestation of the horn fly, Haematobia irritans (Linnaeus) (Diptera: Muscidae), differs among bovines within the same herd. We hypothesized that these differences might be related to the epidermal thickness of the cattle and the blood intake capacity of the fly. Results showed that dark animals carried more flies and had a thinner epidermis than light-coloured animals, which was consistent with the greater haemoglobin content found in flies caught on darker cattle.