Figure 4: The I. scapularis IMD pathway affects bacterial colonization in vivo.
From: Infection-derived lipids elicit an immune deficiency circuit in arthropods
(a) RNAi silencing of bendless/uev1a, relish and caspar in I. scapularis nymphs following tick feeding on (a–c) A. phagocytophilum-infected or (d–f) B. burgdorferi-infected mice. Silencing levels and bacterial load were measured six days post-infection in whole I. scapularis nymphs. Samples represent the mean of 5–10 individual ticks, two technical replicates each,±standard errors of the means (SEM). Student’s t test. *P<0.05. scRNA, scrambled RNA; siRNA, small interference RNA. See also Supplementary Table 2.
