Ingestion of saliva during carbohydrate feeding by Lutzomyia longipalpis (Diptera; Psychodidae).

The aim of this study was to obtain experimental evidence that phlebotomine saliva is actually ingested during the carbohydrate ingestion phase (before and after blood digestion). The ingestion of carbohydrate was simulated as it occurs in the field by offering the insects balls of cotton soaked in sucrose, sucrose crystals or orange juice cells. The results obtained here showed that ingestion occurred under each condition investigated, as indicated by the presence of apyrase, an enzyme used as a marker to detect saliva in the insect gut and/or carbohydrate sources. Saliva ingestion by phlebotomine during the carbohydrate ingestion phase is important to explain how it could promote starch digestion and to trigger Leishmania promastigotes to follow a differentiation pathway as proposed previously by some authors.