The Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus Bm86 gene plays a critical role in the fitness of ticks fed on cattle during acute Babesia bovis infection

Table 1 Effect of silencing the Bm86 gene on R. microplus females fed on cattle during acute Babesia bovis infection.

	Treatments	Percentage of engorged females (n)	Weight (mg) of engorged females (St.Dev.)	% of oviposition (n)	Egg mass (mg) (St.Dev.)	Percentage of hatching (n)	Percentage of larvae survival (n)	Infection rate of *B. bovis* in larval progeny (n)^e
Experiment one ^a	Control females	46.1% (83/180)^b	342.4 (± 56.7)	98.7% (82/83)	141.1 (± 42.3)	89.9% (74/82)	100% (74/74)	30% (10)
	Silenced females	20% (36/180)^c	319.3 (± 81.1)	91.3% (33/36)	121.0 (± 47.9)^d	90.6% (30/33)	100% (30/30)	20% (10)
Experiment two ^a	Control females	ND	233.1 (± 41.0)	87.5% (7/8)	69.0 (± 31.0)	85.7 (6/7)	ND	ND
	Silenced females	ND	226.6 (± 40.0)	100% (8/8)	70.0 (± 47.0)	87.5 (7/8)	ND	ND

^a Experimental conditions of experiment one and two are described in Figure 4A and 4B, respectively.
^b A total of 200 ticks were injected with Bm86 dsRNA however, 20 partially engorged females from each group from both experiments were collected for gene expression and histological analyses, and 180 females were used for fitness evaluation.
^c Chi-squared test (P < 0.01)
^d t test (P < 0.01)
^e Number of larvae progeny samples (containing approximately 100 larvae per sample)
ND - not determined

ISSN: 1756-3305