ISOLATION, AMPLIFICATION, AND SEQUENCING OF HUMAN MITOCHONDRIAL-DNA OBTAINED FROM HUMAN CRAB LOUSE, PTHIRUS-PUBIS (L.), BLOOD MEALS

The ability to identify individual human hosts based on analyses of bl ood recovered from the digestive tract of hematophagous arthropods has been a long-term pursuit in both medical and forensic entomology. Blo od meal individualization techniques can bring important advancements to studies of vector-borne disease epidemiology. Forensically, these a nalyses may aid in assailant identification in violent crime cases whe re blood-feeding insects or their excreta are recovered from victims o r at crime scenes. Successful isolation, amplification, and sequencing of human mitochondrial DNA obtained from adult human crab lice fed on human volunteers are reported. Adult lice were removed from recruited volunteers frequenting inner city health clinics. Live lice were kill ed by freezing and subsequently air dried at ambient temperature. A sa liva sample was obtained from each volunteer and served as a DNA refer ence sample. Volunteers were afforded free, approved pediculosis treat ment. Individual lice were subsequently processed using procedures dev eloped for the extraction of mitochondrial DNA from human hair, teeth, and bone. The resulting DNA was amplified by the polymerase chain rea ction and sequenced. Our results point to valuable avenues for future entomological research.