Morphological study of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae) eggs by X-ray computed microtomography

Publication date: Available online 16 August 2019Source: MicronAuthor(s): Lilian Mirian Oliveira de Morais, Eduardo Inocente Jussiani, João Antonio Cyrino Zequi, Paulo José dos Reis, Avacir Casanova AndrelloAbstractAedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus are vectors of several arboviruses responsible for causing dengue, chikungunya, Zika, and yellow fever viruses and microcephaly, resulting in a public health problem in several countries worldwide. Even in this scenario, studies on the morphology of mosquito eggs are still lacking. In this paper, X-ray microtomography was used to study mosquito egg morphology. Several parameters such as length, surface area, volume, area-by-volume ratio, eccentricity and center of mass of the eggs were determined. The results obtained showed that micro-CT is an efficient technique for the morphological study of insect eggs and provides information that cannot be obtained with other techniques.
Source: Micron - Category: Biology Source Type: research