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Sarcoptes mite from collection to DNA extraction: the lost realm of the neglected parasite

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Abstract

Sarcoptes mite from collection to DNA extraction forms the cornerstone for studies on Sarcoptes scabiei. Whilst the new science era took a shy leap into the different facets of mite studies, the cornerstone was almost entirely neglected. Mite collection, cleaning, storage and DNA extraction were, basically, humble attempts to extrapolate, adapt, modify or ‘pirate’ those existing methods to the peculiarities of Sarcoptes research. These aspects usually constituted few lines, bashfully mentioned, in the materials and methods section of some papers, which arose in unique problems concerning cost-effectiveness, time profitability, safety and even worse, the credibility of the results, creating contradictory conclusions in some cases. This ‘noisy’ situation encouraged us to collect, classify and review, for the first time to our knowledge, some aspects relating to studies on Sarcoptes mite from collection to DNA extraction, which will be useful for further studies on Sarcoptes, and have implications for the effective control of the diseases Sarcoptes mite causes. Further studies are needed, especially to compare the profitability, safety, sensibility and specificity of the different methods of this neglected realm of the ubiquitous ectoparasite.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Aleppo University-Syria, Università di Torino-Italy, Universidad de Jaén-Spain, Estación Biológica de Doñana (CSIC)-Spain, RNM118 investigation group (Junta de Andalucía-Spain) and South China Agricultural University—China for financial support and fellowships dedicated to parasitology research. XQZ is supported by grants from the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (Grant No. IRT0723) and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (Team Project, Grant no. 5200638).

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Correspondence to S. Alasaad, L. Rossi or X. Q. Zhu.

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Alasaad, S., Rossi, L., Soriguer, R.C. et al. Sarcoptes mite from collection to DNA extraction: the lost realm of the neglected parasite. Parasitol Res 104, 723–732 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-009-1333-0

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