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10 April 2019 The Basic Plan of the Adult Heart Is Conserved Across Different Species of Adult Mosquitoes, But the Morphology of Heart-Associated Tissues Varies
Henrique Barbosa da Silva, Raquel Soares Maia Godoy, Gustavo Ferreira Martins
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Abstract

The heart is a pivotal organ in insects because it performs a number of different tasks, such as circulating nutrients, hormones, and excreta. In this study, the morphologies of the heart and associated tissues, including pericardial cells (PCs) and alary muscles (AMs), in the hematophagous mosquitoes Anopheles aquasalis Curry (Diptera: Culicidae), Aedes aegypti L. (Diptera: Culicidae), and Culex quinquefasciatus Say (Diptera: Culicidae), and the phytophagous Toxorhynchites theobaldi Dyar & Knab (Diptera: Culicidae) were compared using different microscopy techniques. Mosquito hearts are located across the median dorsal region of the whole abdomen. Paired incurrent openings in the heart wall (ostia) are found in the intersegmental regions (segments 2–7) of the abdomen, while an excurrent opening is located in the terminal cone of Ae. aegypti. The sides of the heart contain PC that are more numerous in An. aquasalis and Th. theobaldi. In these two species, PC form a cord of as closely aggregated cells, but in Ae. aegypti and Cx. quinquefasciatus, PC occur in pairs with two or four PC pairs per intersegmental region. In Th. theobaldi, AM binds to all regions of the heart, whereas in other mosquitoes they only bind in the intersegmental regions. The basic plan of the adult heart was conserved across all the adult mosquitoes investigated in this study. This conserved organization was expected because this organ plays an important role in the maintenance of individual homeostasis. However, the species had different PC and of AM morphologies. These morphological differences seem to be related to distinct physiological requirements of mosquito circulatory system.

© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
Henrique Barbosa da Silva, Raquel Soares Maia Godoy, and Gustavo Ferreira Martins "The Basic Plan of the Adult Heart Is Conserved Across Different Species of Adult Mosquitoes, But the Morphology of Heart-Associated Tissues Varies," Journal of Medical Entomology 56(4), 984-996, (10 April 2019). https://doi.org/10.1093/jme/tjz045
Received: 18 October 2018; Accepted: 12 March 2019; Published: 10 April 2019
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KEYWORDS
alary muscles
heart
mosquitoes
pericardial cells
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