Abstract
Leishmania parasites multiply and develop entirely within their sand fly vector’s gut to generate mammal-infective metacyclic forms for transmission. We have found that perturbation of the sand fly Lutzomyia longipalpis gut microbiota significantly reduces the ability of Leishmania mexicana to undergo metacyclogenesis and establish cutaneous infection in mice. In addition, we have found that sand flies emerge as adults with different microbial assemblies that can be clustered into two enterotypes, which significantly influence metacyclogenesis in the vector. We aim to characterize the bacteria from lab and wild sand flies contributing to this effect and the underlying interactions influencing metacyclogenesis.
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