Fig. 5

Tick morphology at 0, 5, 15 and 25 days after injection of let-7 agomir. Day 0 is defined as when nymphs received the miRNAs, 10 days after blood-feeding; they were reared in the laboratory. There was no difference between the agomir group (A2) and the control group (A1). On day 5, the phenotype had a slight difference in cuticular hardness. On day 15, most ticks of the control group had been through their cuticle, but most of the experiment group had not. The ticks’ cuticle of experiment (C2) was harder than control (C1). On day 25, there were no signs of life for ticks who had failed to be through their cuticle (D2). The cuticular hardness of ticks who had been injected with agomir of let-7 (D2) were much harder than ticks who had been injected with miR-NC (D1). Scale-bars: 1000 µm